
Telecommunication in Zimbabwe
Compared to the European Union, Zimbabwe is massively lagging behind in the development of telecommunications. Under the country code +263, there were a total of 13.44 million connections in 2020. Among them were 13.19 million mobile phones, which corresponds to an average of 0.89 per person. In the EU, this figure is 1.2 mobile phones per person.With about 30,615 webhosts, Zimbabwe is below the world's average by population. At the end of 2020, 1,107 million of these, or about 4 percent, were secured with SSL or comparable encryption.
Back to overview: Zimbabwe
Development of telephone and internet connections
With an average download speed of 6.3 Mbit/second for fixed-network broadband internet, Zimbabwe ranked 163rd in an international comparison. The upload rate was only 4.2 Mbit/second (155th place). The quality of the Internet, consisting of signal fluctuations (jitter) and latency, is very far ahead at 44th place.In mobile internet, i.e. on tablets and smartphones, Zimbabwe comes 121st with a download speed of 12.31 Mbit/second. The upload speed of around 6 Mbit was only enough for 125th place.
The Speedtest Global Index published regularly by Ookla is based on several million individual measurements in February 2022 from 180 countries.
The following diagrams show the development of the various telephone and Internet connections as a percentage of the country's population. Values above 100% mean that, on average, every inhabitant has more than one connection.
Access to the Internet in Zimbabwe from 1990 - 2020
Broadband internet in Zimbabwe 2001 - 2020

Landlines 1990 - 2020
Mobile phones 1990 - 2020
Distribution in 2020 | Zimbabwe Total | Zimbabwe percent | EU Total | EU percent |
---|---|---|---|---|
Internet users | 4.35 m | 29.30 % | 379.48 m | 84.74 % |
Broadband users | 203,461.00 | 1.37 % | 163.72 m | 36.56 % |
Landlines | 252,067.00 | 1.70 % | 160.15 m | 35.76 % |
Mobile cellulars | 13.19 m | 88.76 % | 540.56 m | 120.71 % |