ECONET Wireless Zimbabwe (Econet) says artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of its business operations, as it enabled the company to deliver a remarkable 47% growth in voice usage in the financial year ended February 29, 2024.
The revelation was made in Econet’s financial year report ended February 29, 2024, wherein the firm lost ZW$1,1 trillion (US$73,76 million) owing mostly to the volatility of the now defunct Zimbabwe dollar.
As such, Econet has committed to using AI to upscale and upgrade its network to offer better services to its millions of clients across the country.
Globally, the usage of AI is being pushed as a major advantage to help streamline business processes in order to cut costs and increase profits.
“Artificial Intelligence has become an integral part of our business operations. For the year under review, we significantly accelerated the use of AI tools to improve operational efficiency, optimise our business and provide superior customer experiences,” Econet chairperson James Myers said.
“For example, we deployed algorithms which greatly improved our ability to segment customers and offer highly personalized experiences. This has resulted in increased customer activity ratios.
“To improve on usage and revenue, we integrated intelligent recommendation engines and predictive models into our daily operations. This has enabled us to deliver a remarkable 47% growth in usage in the voice segment.”
Group revenue for the period under review was recorded at ZW$14,8 trillion (US$992,43 million), a growth of 133% in comparison to the 2023 comparative year.
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Investment in network modernisation, which included AI capital commitments, resulted in volume growth of voice and data of 34% and 36%, respectively.
In the period under review, Econet invested ZW$732,83 billion (US$49,14 million) as its capital expenditure which was slightly down from the amount it spent in the 2023 comparative period.
Myers said that the firm’s strategic partnerships with key equipment vendors had enabled the firm to accelerate its current network modernisation programme, after several years of underinvestment, due to limited foreign currency availability.
“We have now modernised over 1 012 sites with 4G high-capacity base stations. Of these, 750 are in Harare and Bulawayo and the whole of Manicaland region. Our modernization efforts will continue with another 550 base station sites planned across the country,” Myers said.
He thanked the government, through the Postal & Telecommunications Regulatory Authority, for providing Econet with a spectrum within the 700MHz frequency band as it would extend the coverage of existing base stations.
As power outages on the national grid remained prevalent, Econet continued to deploy renewable energy solutions to mitigate service degradation.
“Consequently, the business was able to maintain a high uptime on the majority of our base stations. We will continue to invest in green power solutions to improve network availability,” Myers added.
Econet reported that the depreciation of the local currency during the year had a negative impact on the group’s financial performance.
However, the chairperson said the business continued to experience sustained growth in the demand for its products and services, shaped by evolving customer needs.
