MOBILE telephone subscriptions slightly increased in the third quarter of 2022/2023 with Tigo emerging as the top gainer and Smile Tanzania losing hundreds of customers, Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) statistics shows.
MIC Tanzania operating as Tigo increased 658,665 new customers out of 1,602,698 new subscriptions in the quarter as Smile Tanzania lost 376 customers, according to the statistics.
Airtel became the second top gainer with 438,228 new subscribers followed by Vodacom with 372,875 new customers, Halotel (117,898) and TTCL (15,408).
In terms of market share, no one has greater than 35 per cent which signifies that there is a healthy competition among the mobile telephone operators.
The Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange (DSE) listed Vodacom maintained lead as the largest mobile network operator in Tanzania with 30 per cent of the local market and a subscriber base of 18.5 million in the quarter ending March up from 18.1 million customers in the previous quarter.
It is followed by Airtel, a subsidiary of Bharti Airtel of India, as the second-largest mobile network operator with 28 per cent of market share. Airtel has 17 million customers as at the end of March this year, up from 16.6 million customers last December.
Tigo follows as the third largest operator with 26 per cent market share and 16.5 subscribers as at March this year up from 15.9 as at December last year.
The fourth largest operator is Viettel Tanzania trading as Halotel, which commands 13 per cent of market share and 8.1 million subscribers up from 8.0 million customers followed by state-owned TTCL with 2.0 per cent market share and 1,510,985 customers up from 1,495,577 customers in December last year.
Smile Tanzania is the smallest operator with 0.02 per cent of market share with 15,171 customers in March this year down from 15,547 in December last year.
Total subscriptions have increased by 1.2 per cent from 60.3 million subscriptions in December 2022 to 61.9 million as at end of March this year.
