As we have already said in an earlier article today, the rate might have stabilised earlier this month but prices keep going up. Econet, Zimbabwe’s largest mobile network operator, recently informed their customers that their voice, SMS and data tariffs would be going up starting 1 September (tomorrow at the time of writing this). It is important to note that these are not the same as data and SMS bundle tariffs, if you want to view these you will need to visit our Econet bundles page. The tariffs that are going up are Zimbabwean dollar tariffs and not USD ones.

The new Econet tariffs will now be as follows:

  • For voice, you will now pay $0.4325 ZWL per second or $26.10 ZWL per minute. That is currently about US$0.0373 per minute.
  • $4.1036 ZWL per MB for out-of-bundle pricing which translates to US$5.86 per GB.
  • If you are some caveman who wants to send SMS messages to your friends and family you can expect to pay $5.3309 ZWL per SMS

NB Econet is grappling with the rate problem. They would rather we all buy USD bundles and put US dollars directly into their coffers but the reality is that for voice at least there is really no reason for you to buy USD airtime because ZWL is still cheaper.