Telecoms struggle as mobile money subscribers drop

Dar es Salaam. Telecommunication firms put up a spirited fight for market dominance during the first quarter of 2018 as they sought to grab a pie of the lucrative revenue amid declining mobile money subscriptions.

Mobile money and data are currently driving revenues in the telecommunication sector, sending operators to shift their energies on the two revenue streams.

According to the latest Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) figures, the number of mobile money subscribers dropped by a cool 2,575,551 during the first quarter of the current calendar year. The country had a total of 21,889,618 mobile money subscribers but the number fell to 19,314,067 in March 2018.

Vodacom Tanzania Plc and Tigo Tanzania emerged as major gainers among the key players, with the former raising its M-Pesa subscription number by a cool six per cent.

The Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) listed company raised its share of the mobile market from 37 per cent in December 2017 to 43 per cent during the quarter ending March 2018, Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) figures show.

Tigo gained 85,288 new subscribers to reach 6,948,637 in March from 6,863,349 in December 2017.

The two may have eaten into numbers for Airtel’s Airtel Money and Halotel’s HaloPesa. Airtel emerged as the major casualty, losing a total of 2641161subscribers – about 44.9 per cent – of its Airtel Money subscribers.

The company had a total of 3,233,988 in March, down from 5,875,149 in December 2017.

As for Halotel, the number of its Halo Pesa subscribers dropped by 171,706 to reach 609,770 in March 2018 from 781,476 in December 2017.

There was no immediate reaction from the company’s management but the Vodacom chief executive officer Ian Ferrao said during the company’s financial statement for the year ending March 31, 2018 that mobile money and data platforms were some of the factors behind the firm’s bloated profit.

Vodacom registered a profit of Sh170.24 billion during the year ended March 2018 from a mere Sh47.554 billion during the preceding year. Revenues from M-Pesa rose by 16.7 per cent to settle at Sh291.193 billion during the year .

ending March 2018, from Sh249.6 billion during the preceding year.