I will be honest for the past 8 weeks I have been avoiding EcoCash like a plague. In fact, during that time whenever I have been forced to use EcoCash, nothing has worked as it should. Even paying ZOL, my internet service provider, was harder than it should have been. So hard that I ended up visiting their offices for the first time in years to complete payment.

However, according to POTRAZ’s third-quarter report, EcoCash is still the undisputed king of mobile money. Just how dominant is EcoCash you ask? Well, over 93% of mobile money transactions done were done using EcoCash. 6% were done using OneMoney and Telecash seems to have a market share of less than 1%. That is just sad.

OneMoney making inroads

It is important to note that the third quarter information pertains to a period before the EocoCash upgrade woes. However even during this time, OneMoney started making some inroads at the expense of EcoCash.

Ecocash’s market share dropped to 93.3% compared to 94.4% in the second quarter of 2019
At the same time, OneMoney’s share of the market improved from 4.8% to 6%

No doubt due to OneMoney’s zero charges promotion and the ongoing issues with EcoCash we will see them losing even more market share to OneMoney.

Inflation

During the same time, the value of transactions conducted using mobile money increased by 20% from $477.4 million to $575.4 million. This was not progress but rather indicates the toll inflation is taking on our economy as well as the effects of acute cash shortages.