The number of telecom subscription increased by 7.7 percent during the fourth quarter of last year to 86.8 million from 80.7 million during the quarter ending September 2024, latest communication statistics by Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) have shown.

During the quarter under review, distribution of telecom subscriptions per region shows Dar es Salaam ranked first by having 15.98 million of all active subscriptions, Mwanza ranked second with 5.75 million subscriptions, Arusha ranked third with 5.23 million subscriptions.

Other top regions include Mbeya, which was ranked fourth with 4.99 million subscriptions and Dodoma ranked fifth by having 4.64 million of all active subscriptions. 

Regions with the lowest contribution to the country’s total subscriptions are Kaskazini Unguja 79,398 subscriptions, Kusini Unguja 119,480 subscriptions, and Kusini Pemba 134,017 subscriptions.

Vodacom was leading the market (31 percent) followed by Yas (30 percent) and Airtel (23 percent). 

For M2M, Vodacom was leading the market with more than half (54.0 percent) of all M2M subscriptions. Airtel ranks second with 33.5 percent, followed by Halotel with 7.2 percent.

The report shows no difference in charges when calling within and outside the network. 

All operators charged 30/- per minute, except Halotel Tanzania who charged 10/- (on-net) and 20/- (off-net) per minute. 

The industry average for local voice tariff in the quarter ending December 2024 remained the same at 26/- and 28/- per minute for on-net and off-net respectively, as in quarter ending September 2024.

The report further shows that RoW voice tariffs differ across networks, unlike local tariffs with the exception of Halotel. 

The industry average rate for voice tariff per minute EA and RoW are 597.40/- and 2,016.70/- respectively

The industry average tariffs for the local SMS (7.80/-), data (9.35/-) and international SMS (189.61/-) for December 2024 have remained the same as in the quarter ending September 2024.

According to the report around 42.5 billion minutes were spent in the quarter ending December 2024 compared to 41.1 billion minutes spent in the quarter ending September 2024. 

Further, December had the highest traffic compared to other months of the quarter. 

The report indicates that more on-net and off-net traffic were generated in the Airtel network (38.2 percent and 29.0 percent, respectively).

The traffic minutes to international increased by 25 percent. Moreover, there was an increase of 14 percent in traffic minutes from international. 

This result shows that subscribers originated more calls to international than received from international in this quarter.