By Al-amani Mutarubukwa
The Citizen Reporter
Dar es Salaam. The number of mobile subscribers in the country is expected to hit 36.6 million in the next four years.
According to Business Monitor International’s report, the industry is expected to grow at a penetration rate of more than 70 per cent by 2015. BMI attributes this to the impact of the recently heated tariff wars among the operators in a bid to boost subscriber growth.

There are seven telecom companies operating in the country namely; Vodacom, Airtel, Tigo, Zantel, TTCL, Sasatel and Benson Informatics. Data from the telecoms regulator, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority, indicates that the country had 20.983 million mobile subscribers at the end of December 2010.

This represented an annual growth rate of 21.5 per cent and mobile penetration of 46.6 per cent.Researches indicate that increasing penetration rate of telecommunication services by 10 per cent pushes a country’s gross domestic product  up by 1.2 per cent.

However, industry analysts warn that the war may end up discouraging future investments in the once fastest-growing industry as well as lead to poor services to subscribers due to network congestion. Tanzania's mobile market experienced relatively fast growth in Q210 and Q310, with net additions of 1.731 million and 1.278 million subscribers respectively.

However, market growth in Q110 and Q410 were more tempered, with net additions of just 312,000 and 386,000 subscribers respectively.Price wars, which began with Sh1 per second tariff almost four years ago, were rekindled late last year with at least three operators dropping their tariffs to less than Sh0.5 per second.

“Value-added services (VAS) and network coverage and quality is expected to play key roles in competition for subscribers as operators begin to rein in tariff cuts amid lower revenue intakes,” the report reads in part.Mobile data and mobile payment are the main forms of VAS in the market.The launch of mobile TV services in May 2011 by Vodacom added a new dimension to VAS offerings.

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