SIM cards surge, gender gap narrows

DAR ES SALAAM: SIM Cards registration in Tanzania increased by 74 per cent nationwide and almost doubled in five regions between June 2021 and June 2025, an analysis of the latest communications sector status report has established.

The report, released by the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) Director-General, Dr Jabiri Bakari, also shows that the gender gap in SIM card registration and usage is less than four percentage points.

There were 92,735,798 active SIM cards in June 2025, compared with 53,182,651 in June 2021.

The report shows that 47,100,356 SIM cards (51.96) were registered by men and 43,543,087 (48.04) by women.

The June 2025 figure shows a 2.6 per cent increase, from 90.4 million SIM cards in March.

TCRA derives the figures from all active SIM cards that registered an activity or had been used at least once in three months preceding a count.

Vodacom has the largest market share of 32.1 per cent, followed by Yas (28.1), Airtel (22.4), Halotel (15.6) and TTCL (1.8).

The June 2025 SIM cards include 91,652,443 used for interpersonal communication and 1,083,355 for machine-to-machine (M2M) communication.

M2M is based on advanced information and communications technologies (ICTs) that enable devices to communicate over networks with minimal human intervention.

They include SIM-enabled closed-circuit cameras that send periodic reports and can be operated remotely.

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M2M SIM cards increased by 12 per cent between March 2024 and June this year.

Some 56.63 per cent are on the Vodacom network. The other networks’ percentages, in brackets, are Airtel (32.37), Halotel (7.57), Yas (5.9) and TTCL (0.43).

Regions with the highest SIM card growth between June 2022 and June 2025, with percentages in brackets, are Coast (88), Dar es Salaam (86), Mwanza (82), Njombe (82) and Mbeya (80).

The increase was 93 per cent in the Zanzibar (Unguja) regions.

Above 50 per cent increases were recorded in Dodoma (73 per cent), Arusha (72), Simiyu (64), Tanga (63), Ruvuma (62) and Kilimanjaro (62). Others are Manyara (60), Morogoro (59), Songwe (58), Mtwara (56), Singida (55), Pemba regions (54), Shinyanga (53) and Geita (51).

The report shows the penetration of third and fourth generation technologies (3G and 4G) increased by between 11 and 5 per cent between June 2024 and June this year.

4G geographical coverage extended by 8.7 per cent in the period.

The fifth generation (5G) had penetrated 5.9 per cent of the population in June this year, compared to 3.6 by March.

It was two per cent in June 2024.

It covered 26 per cent of the country, from 23 per cent in March 2025 and 15 per cent in June 2024.