High five for Econet!

Zimbabwe’s leading cellco Econet Wireless yesterday announced that it has reached over five million subscribers. CEO Douglas Mboweni said the total number of subscribers stood at 5.012 million as at 30 November 2010, with demand for new mobile connections remaining strong, as the company was currently selling all the lines being released onto the market. ‘Econet continues to account for the majority of all lines sold in the market,’ Mboweni said, adding: ‘The increase in the subscriber base has been made possible by the ongoing network expansion.’ The latest milestone follows Econet near-trebling its subscribers to 4.59 million at the end of August 2010, from 1.65 million a year earlier. Econet also relaunched its 3G (W-CDMA/HSPA) mobile and WiMAX-based services in October 2010 over upgraded core infrastructure, and Mboweni said Econet now has 433,312 subscribers to the three 3G/WiMAX packages being offered under the Econet Broadband banner. The company’s broadband services will be further boosted by its ongoing rollout of an international and national fibre-optic transmission network, and this week it announced that work had been completed on a link to the SEACOM undersea cable landing in South Africa.