VODACOM MAINTAINS MARKET LEAD, TTCL STRUGGLES

Vodacom has maintained the lead as the largest mobile network operator in Tanzania as the state-owned TTCL lost hundreds of thousands of customers in the first and second quarters of the current financial year, recently published Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) statistics shows.

The statistics show the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) listed Vodacom controls 30 per cent of the Tanzania market with a subscriber base of 18 million in the quarter ending December last year.

It is followed by Airtel, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel of India, as the second-largest mobile network operator with 28 per cent of the market share from 16.6 customers.

MIC Tanzania Limited operating as Tigo follows with 26 per cent and 15.9 subscribers as of December last year.

The fourth largest operator is Viettel Tanzania trading as Halotel, which commands 13 per cent of the market share and 8.0 million subscribers followed by state-owned TTCL with three per cent and 1.5 million customers and Smile with 0.03 per cent from 15,547 customers.

Despite the increase in subscriptions, TTCL lost about 5,623 subscriptions in the quarter ending December.

The state-owned operator had lost 282,101 customers in the quarter ending September from 1,783,301 customers in June to 1,501,200 customers in September.

There is no operator with a significant market share in terms of subscriptions, which signifies that there is healthy competition among the operators in retaining consumers and recruiting new consumers.

The second quarter of 2022/2023 has experienced a significant increase in subscriptions which reached 2.2 million from 1.9 million in the first quarter, according to the data.

Total subscriptions have increased by 4 per cent from 58.1 million subscriptions, in September 2022 to 60.3 million as of December 2022.

TCRA says the reason behind such an increase may be associated with end of year festivals whereby many people like to communicate with families and friends around the world hence demanding new SIM cards.