Tigo inaugurates brand campaign

Dar es Salaam. Tigo Tanzania yesterday launched a special brand campaign as it seeks to highlight its 24 years of operations in the country.

Known as ‘Tumekusoma’ (We understand you), the campaign will specifically seek to show the road that Tanzania’s first cellular service provider has gone through during the past 24 years.

“With ‘Tumekusoma’, we seek to show ours as an improved network, with simplified services and one that has a presence in every corner of Tanzania,” the company’s managing director, Mr Simon Karikari, said during a media briefing at the weekend. Under the ‘Tumekusoma’ banner, Tigo also launched a new Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) Code that goes with numbers: *147*00# through which subscribers will be able to access all of the company’s products/services under a single roof.

Tigo Tanzania – which currently commands a 28 per cent share in a competitive market of seven players – is the product of the 1993 liberalisation of the telecommunication sector. It was formed as a joint venture, bringing together Millicom International Cellular based in Luxembourg, Ultimate Communications Limited of Tanzania and Tanzania Posts and Telecommunications Corporation. It was then operating with a brand name of Mobitel and famously known as Buzz.

In February 2004, Millicom International took over a controlling stake in the company, prompting the rebranding of the company to Tigo in 2005. Tigo is known for revolutionizing the cellular phone services sub sector in Tanzania. It was the first company to introduce Sh1/second and Sh0.50/second charges. Tigo launched Tigo Pesa service in 2010 and according to Mr Karikari, a total of Sh1.5 trillion is transacted via the platform every month. With Tigo Pesa, Tigo was also the first company to launch cross-border money transfer services in 2014 –between Tanzania and Rwanda, complete with currency conversions.

Tigo Pesa’s profit share innovation has now been adopted by all operators.