HARARE – Econet Wireless (Econet) – Zimbabwe’s largest mobile network operator – plans to grow its contract subscriber base by 21 percent during its financial year ending February 2015.
Currently, the telecoms firm has around 70 000 contract subscribers.
Its chief commercial and customer services officer Stanley Henning said their contract line base was well ahead of budget.
“That is quiet aggressive and buoyant in a market that is definitely under severe cash restrictions, but if we provide the right product, with the right convenience and support we will get your growth irrespective of what happens around us,” he told Business Live on the sidelines of Econet’s ‘Call and Win Contract’ competition draw in Harare on Thursady.
He said Econet’s contract customers’ usage rate per month was consistent at $35-plus, adding that and a specific plan was underway to optionally convert high and medium category pre-paid subscribers to contract users.
“The reason for that is they will benefit with better tariffs in broadband, sms and voice. The second issue is we want them also on contract because it creates convenience. For example, you sit in your office and make calls, at the end of the month you receive either an electronic e-mail bill or we deliver the statement to your office. So for us it’s absolutely critical to grow this post-paid as we call contract,” he said.
Apart from their businesspartna product targeted executives and managers, Henning said they were currently repositioning the service to extend it to small to medium enterprises.
“Within the next week or two we will launch a new brand for this,” he said.
Henning added that the selected customers will have to through a rigorous credit vetting process in order to qualify.
This comes as last month, Econet partnered a Europe-based money transfer firm WorldRemit to launch a cash remittance service expected to earn about $600 million annually.
Econet gained 0.80 cents to settle at 74 cents on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange on Thursday.