Zimbabwe’s regulator is unable to licence any new entrants in the mobile sector due the scarcity of available spectrum, national newspaper The Herald reported.

Technical services director of the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe, Nicholas Muzhuzha told the newspaper the country did not have the resources to expand the number of companies in the wireless industry beyond the three already present.

He added the regulator had also decided to limit the number of companies in the fixed telecoms sector to two.

The country already has a reasonably competitive market, with GSMA Intelligence estimating leader Econet Wireless had 6.8 million subscribers (excluding M2M connections) at end Q4 2017, ahead of NetOne with 5.1 million and Telecel on 2.1 million.

A fourth licence was reportedly awarded to fixed operator Telone to expand into wireless, but it failed to launch due to “lack of resources” to rollout services.