The Vodacom
chief executive office Mr. Rene Meza was doing an interview with the ‘Business standard’ writer Mr. Abduel Elinaza abut the telecom industry in Tanzania among
the questioned he was asked these are the one brought into my attention
“ How do
you perceive the mobile phone business market since you were appointed as the
Chief Executive Officer (CEO)?”
The answer was “The business has been good with a lot of opportunities
for growth. At the moment we are talking about the penetration of 40 percent, individual’s
usage. The industry is growing with huge potential of expansion in the rural
areas than in urban centers.
While the penetration in the urban
areas is over 80 percent the mobile penetration in rural areas is estimated to
be only 25 percent. This means the future growth of the industry will
eventually come from the rural areas. Therefore the mobile operators who have
the required infrastructures in the rural areas will leverage on such
opportunities for growth.
I believe the regulator TCRA has
played a key role in creating a level playing field for all operators for them
to invest and expand the industry.
It has been so far a great journey
for us at Vodacom and we are still committed to continue investing and
expanding our services and footprint across the country driving M-PESA, driving
internet, and still making the basic services voice and SMS available and affordable to all
Tanzanians."
Question "some industry analysts believe that currently data business is paying more than voice in this country, do you agree with them"
The answer was If i have to look on what we see, i will have to disagree with them. We still see good business coming from voice. The voice business in the country today contribute over 80 percent of the total industry revenue of 1.7 tr per year.
In more mature market like in American or European, yes but in emerging markets like Tanzania, voice has opportunity to grow. And if one goes back to mobile penetration in the rural areas no more than 25 per cent clearly the growth will start with voice and text messages before the rural area become matured enough to migrate to the internet and high speed broadband banner. We don't see voice being dead.
In more mature market like in American or European, yes but in emerging markets like Tanzania, voice has opportunity to grow. And if one goes back to mobile penetration in the rural areas no more than 25 per cent clearly the growth will start with voice and text messages before the rural area become matured enough to migrate to the internet and high speed broadband banner. We don't see voice being dead.