Tanzania has a fairly vibrant mobile market, and it is growing well. Although Vodacom is still by far the largest mobile operator, still able to maintain and market share of more than 40%, Zain and Tigo are fairly strong too and able to compete against the South African giant. Zain ended September 2008 with a 27.9% market share, up slightly on the previous quarter, and Tigo had made greater gains leaping more than 1% to 17.7% at the end of Q308. This means that between them the three operators control more than 87% of Tanzania's mobile market. 3.427mn net additions were added during the first three quarters of 2008, 1.486mn of them during the third quarter, suggesting that mobile growth may have been accelerating towards the end of the year, despite the gathering economic clouds. Growth certainly accelerated in 2008, since the whole of 2007 only saw 2.78mn net additions to the mobile market. BMI is expecting this growth to pick up even further in 2009, with 5.94mn new subscribers to be added. This puts our picture of the Tanzanian mobile market as somewhat more optimistic than that of the national regulator, the Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA). At the end of November 2008, the head of the TCRA said that he expected there to be between 10.5mn and 11mn mobile subscribers at the end of 2008. At BMI, we consider this estimate a little conservative, and we believe this view is backed up by statistics reports from the TCRA itself. Based on subscription figures published by some of Tanzania's mobile operators, and the TRCA's figure of 10.3mn mobile subscribers at the end of June 2008, we estimate that there will be 12.3mn mobile subscribers at the end of 2008, and we forecast 17.7mn by the end of 2009. This would make the total for mid-2009 around 15mn, as opposed to the 13mn put forward by the regulator's chief. 2008 saw new operators added to the market, and even more being licensed. In November 2008, locallybacked companies MyCell and Egotel were licensed as mobile operators, as well as some other companies receiving licences to provide fixed-line services, probably over fixed-wireless technologies, since investing in fixed-line networks is so costly. Tanzania's fixed-line market appears to be in decline, although International Telecommunication Union (ITU) figures suggested it rallied in 2007, the TRCA does not agree with this. In any case, BMI is waiting for fixed-wireless to give the market a boost. In the meantime, incumbent Tanzania Telecommunications Company Limited's (TTCL) core subscriber base is dwindling, albeit very slowly. Since it was not very big to begin with, the incumbent must look to other technologies and types of service in order to keep moving. Tanzania's broadband market is underdeveloped, even for East Africa. Low levels of internet usage suggest the technology is yet to have an impact on the population. New investments in WiMAX and 3G mobile broadband may yet be key top increasing the influence of the worldwide web.
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