Bharti Airtel of India will improve network in Tanzania

Bharti Airtel of India has revealed plans to invest USD150 million over the next three years to expand Zain Tanzania’s networks and services. Bharti considers the Tanzanian market ripe for growth and notes that current fixed and mobile teledensity rates are ‘too low for an attractive market like Tanzania’.

TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database writes that the country was home to 16.59 million mobile subscribers at the end of March 2010, a cellular penetration rate of 39.1%, however with many people owning more than one Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards, it is estimated that only 12.5 million Tanzanians own a mobile phone.

‘We should soon be able to double the number of subscribers from the current 12.5 million to at least 25 million subscribers,’ said Kohli.

Zain Tanzania ended 1Q10 with 5.047 million subscribers, a market share of 30.4%, behind the country’s leading player Vodacom with 5.859 million (35.3%).