Airtel Tanzania slashes charges by 80 per cent

Dar es Salaam. Airtel Tanzania customers have a reason to smile following a telcos company’s decision to cut its service charges by 80 per cent, to keep pace with subscribers demand.

The company’s marketing director, Mr Isack Nchunda, told a press conference Wednesday, that Airtel customers will now have to pay Sh1 per second to call within and outside the network.   

Previously, Airtel charged Sh5 and Sh7.6 per second within and outside its network respectively.

“Before coming up with this service which does not need one to buy a bundle, a customer could pay Sh500 in call charges for one and half minutes. But now, with the same amount one gets eight minutes,” noted Mr Nchunda.

He further noted that the charges  for one Megabyte (MB) has gone down to Sh40 compared to the previous Sh172.

In another development, the price for one Short Message Service (SMS) has dropped to Sh10 compared to the previous Sh50.

“Our arrival to this decision of slashing charges for our services has been attributed to complaints from customers about high subscription costs,” revealed Mr Nchunda.

Airtel Communications director Beatrice Singano said the company is committed to giving its customers the very best affordable products and services that would positively impact on their lives.

“Airtel is optimistic the cheaper tariffs will help grow and defend its market share in a business segment,” said Ms Singano.

She added: We have conducted a research before arriving to a decision of reducing charges. We established that the move will have no negative repercussions on our revenue, but rather expand our customer base (without quantifying).”

Tanzania’s mobile market is served by eight mobile operators, which are Vodacom (32 per cent), Tigo (29 per cent), Airtel (26 per cent), Halotel (9 per cent), Zantel (2 per cent), TTCL (1 per cent), Smart (1 per cent) and Smile (1 per cent).