Industries · 06
Logistics and transport
Harare is the hub of a landlocked country's road and air freight. The work is paper-heavy at the border, phone-heavy on the road, and cash-heavy at the bus rank — three different automation problems.
What is specific to Harare
Air. Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport handled 1,652,432 passengers in 2025 across 13 scheduled airlines, through a terminal commissioned in July 2023 at US$153m that raised capacity from 2.5 million to 6 million a year (gates 6 → 16, air bridges 3 → 7). A second runway and a cargo terminal are the announced next phase.
Road. Freight forwarders, clearing agents and warehousing concentrate on the Mutare Road corridor at Msasa and south of the CBD at Graniteside and Southerton/Workington; the Beitbridge corridor sets the timing for most imports. Intercity buses and kombis run from the Mbare terminus, in cash, in USD small change.
Connectivity on the move. Drivers are on mobile data averaging ≈3.8 GB a month; depots increasingly run fibre plus Starlink. Proof-of-delivery has to work offline and sync later.
Sources: RGM airport; Simple Flying; DevelopZim; Mbare; Techzim / POTRAZ.
What fits
| Operator | Pattern | Harare constraint |
|---|---|---|
| Freight forwarder / clearing agent (Msasa) | Shipment status desk: customer asks on WhatsApp, gets the consignment's stage; per-consignment document checklist. | Border and ZIMRA paperwork is the bottleneck, not the message; the checklist must mirror the actual customs pack. |
| Courier / last-mile (Graniteside) | Proof of delivery: photo plus WhatsApp confirmation to the sender; route exceptions flagged. | Offline-first capture; prepaid data; drivers' own phones. |
| Bus / kombi operator (Mbare) | Seat booking and departure notices for intercity routes. | Cash fares; informality; the "system" is a conductor with a phone. |
| Fleet owner | Fuel and service reminders per vehicle; driver check-in. | Fuel bought in USD; tracker data lives with the tracker vendor. |
Index rows: Logistics and transport.