Zimbabwe’s Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (POTRAZ) on Thursday disclosed that it had censored the price of mobile data by 60 per cent with effect from July.

The regulator said in Harare that it would review charges annually.

 The agency said that mobile data would cost five cents per megabytes instead of 12.5 cents, exclusive of taxes.

 “The authority took into account the prevailing economic environment as well as the competing needs of ensuring operator viability and service affordability for the consumers,” it said.

POTRAZ said that charges by Internet service providers would be determined by the market, but imposed a 50 per cent cut in the cost of calls between local telecoms companies.

 Lower prices will likely increase the country’s Internet penetration rate, which the country’s regulator says stood at 50.8 per cent last December, as more subscribers find it cheaper to access the Internet.

Data showed that Internet traffic doubled between January and December last year, but the price reduction could eat into data revenue for Econet Wireless, the country’s largest operator.

Econet, which accounted for 65 per cent of the data market share as at December 2017, did not respond when reached for comments.