Vodacom loses dominance in Tanzania’s mobile phone market share amid competition from Airtel, Tigo and Halotel
As of June this year, Vodacom had dominated the market with over 19.1 million subscriptions by June 2023, whereas Aitel and Tigo had around 17.5 million subscriptions each, respectively.
“There is no operator with a market share greater than 35%, which is a minimum significant level for a dominant operator. This observation signifies no dominant operator, indicating healthy competition among operators,” said the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA)
Mobile subscription market share:
Vodacom 31%
Airtel 28%
Tigo 27%
Halotel 12%
TTCL 2%
Vodacom had a dominant market share of 35% in 2015.
The MD of Vodacom Tanzania Philip Besiimire last week outlined some of the challenges besieging operators in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa including power supply and regulatory hurdles. Still, it maintained the region offered a massive opportunity.
“Quite a lot of challenges besiege the industry or the various players in the ecosystem,” he added. “Whether it’s cost of deployment, power supply, regulatory handles, sometimes the terrain [or] geography of where we have to go to, climate and environmental factors.”
