Mashudu Netsianda, Senior Reporter
ZIMPAPERS stable is continuing to dominate the market on both print and digital platforms while Bulawayo has maintained its pole position with the highest number of users of social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, a survey has revealed.
The Zimpapers’ flagship, The Herald maintained its pole position as the most read daily newspaper with 49 percent of Zimbabweans having read the hard copy in the last four weeks and 43 percent reading the online version.
The paper dominated in both urban and rural markets where readers said they had read the paper in the last four weeks.
Chronicle came third, claiming 28 percent of the readers preferring the hard copy and 25 percent for the online readers.
According to the Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey (ZAMPS) conducted by the Zimbabwe Advertising Research Foundation (ZARF) for the first half of 2021, Bulawayo metropolitan province also has the highest number of people who read online daily newspapers in the country in the past four weeks.
According to the Zimbabwe All Media Products Survey (ZAMPS) conducted by the Zimbabwe Advertising Research Foundation (ZARF) for the first half of 2021, Bulawayo metropolitan province also has the highest number of people who read online daily newspapers in the country in the past four weeks.
Matabeleland South province recorded 44 percent for Facebook and 23 percent for Twitter while Harare recorded 63 percent Facebook usage and 21 percent Twitter usage.
Midlands recorded 68 percent Facebook usage, 12 percent Twitter usage, 27 percent YouTube usage and 15 percent Instagram usage.
Matabeleland North recorded the least number of users of Facebook with 36 percent usage, 13 percent Twitter usage, 18 percent YouTube usage and 16 percent Instagram usage.
All the provinces save for Masvingo and Midlands recorded 100 percent WhatsApp usage. Masvingo and Midlands recorded 96 and 95 percent WhatsApp usage respectively.
The report indicated that most people use WhatsApp, which is the most popular among all age groups, for personal communication.
The report showed that the majority of readers now preferred to get their news online both in the rural and urban areas.
In urban areas, 15 percent of the surveyed population said they had read the hard copy of the daily newspapers while 18 percent had read the online version.
The same was also true for the rural folk where 9 percent indicated that they had read daily newspapers online while eight percent said they had read the hard copy.
In the weekly newspapers’ category, The Sunday Mail maintained its dominance claiming 43 percent of the hard copy readership and 41 percent for online readers, closely followed by B-Metro and Kwayedza.
Fifteen percent of readers read the B-Metro hard copy and another 15 percent had read it online, while 12 percent said they had read the Kwayedza online as well as the hard copy.
The Manica Post got 10 percent of the online and hard copy readership and The Sunday News and The Business Weekly had five percent and six percent of the people surveyed said they had read the hard copies respectively.
Both papers had nine percent of readers saying they had read the online edition.
In the radio division, Star FM came in fourth with 23 percent of the listeners while Manicaland’s Diamond FM followed at number six with 11 percent of the people surveyed saying they had listened to the stations in the last four weeks.
Econet has proved to be the most popular company for internet users with a 83 percent usage countrywide while Netone users are at 27 percent, Tel-One six percent, ZOL five percent, Liquid two percent and Telecel at one percent.
ZAFR chief executive officer Mrs Pamela Gwanzura said ZAMPS helps marketers and advertisers to determine their market size, profile, market trends and market structure.
“The ZAMPS survey is a decision-making tool for most corporates because it tells them what Zimbabweans are reading, listening to, watching, the products and services they are using, buying and the reasons why. The survey also keeps them abreast with market changes and market insights that equip all marketers to make informed decisions,” she said.
“From the media perspectives, ZAMPS helps proprietors to know their ranking against other players so that they are able to fine tune their content to ensure they please their audience.”
In terms of quality control, Mrs Gwanzura said the findings from the research are checked and verified a by a technical committee which comprises a group of marketing research experts with broad experience in the market.
“The survey is checked for flaws, for relevance and credibility in terms of technical elements and approach,” she said.
ZARF was established in Harare in 1997 to commission market research on behalf of advertisers, the media, publishers, advertising agencies and public relations consultancies.
It was commissioned by the Topline Research Solutions (TRS), a regional market research consultancy, to carry out the ZAMPS study.
