It is always about the price wars for Tanzania mobile companies....


Recently the competition in the telecom industry of Tanzania has increased tremendously. Each and every company is coming out with strategic plan to survive in the tough competition of winning the hearts of the mobile subscribers. With Tanzania targeting to reach 36 million by 2015 as reported by the local magazine the citizen. The population of Tanzania is approximately 45 million people currently. The mobile phone services are expected to reach all these people in the long term plan. By the information provided by TCRA on 2009 on the distribution of mobile phone subscribers according to the mobile service providers they found that Vodacom was the leading company with 38 percent of the total population of the country being subscribed to their services.
         The mobile tariffs has been the major influence for the mobile subscribers to join the companies. The Indian telecom giant company Airtel take over Zain Tanzania from the previous owners of the company.  Currently most of the companies are targeting youth by coming up with packages that touches this specific group of people in the local communities. The recently Zantel's Epiq Nation Bongo Star Search is among the strategies used by the mobile companies to attract more number of youth  subscribers. Upon launching the Epiq Nation product on 29th June 2011 in Dar es Salaam Norman Moyo, Zantel Chief Commercial Officer officiating at the launch said Zantel is moving away from the price wars and is focusing on value based products that fit into today’s lifestyle. Mr. Moyo added "“Zantel brand is associated with innovation as is evident with our wide product portfolio, quality service and customer experience. Epiq Nation is the new addition with a concept that focuses wholly on the lifestyle of the customer to enable them save money from their daily expenses leaving them with enough to communicate with their family and friends. We are bringing a revolution in the telecom industry where our message is it is no longer about making calls but it is all about a lifestyle.” But the actual question here is is there a way out from the "price wars", Airtel main strategy until now has been providing the quality services at a lower cost and focusing more in innovation and technology changes. The kula dabo na Airtel is the new Airtel scheme, the Swahili words means "have double with Airtel" the Airtel subscriber will receive a bonus equal to the amount he has used to recharge his phone as if he has recharge the phone twice with the same amount, although this offer will stay for 10 days according to  Airtel Public Relations Manager Jackson Mmbando now this is what i call the price war which is inevitable to stay away from it. With the Tigo extreme package
             By dialing *148*01# or sending the word XTREME to 15509, prepaid customers will enjoy tremendous value including 15 minutes Tigo to Tigo, 100 SMS, 50 MB which can be used for Facebook, Internet Browsing, E-mail and Twitter, all for only Tsh450, a saving of Sh4,600! In addition, Tigo will send its customers free SMS alerts upon reaching their package usage limit, allowing them to repurchase if required.
           Vodacom currently are focusing more in internet services some packages for Blackberry phones have been released to the media for advertisement. As user of the mobile phone all we need is quality services at reasonable costs it doesn't matter the service come from which company. What we argued the companies to do is to give back to the community especially in awareness programs prepared by the Government since mobile phone has proven itself to be among the major means of communication in Tanzania.