Celtel Tanzania is strengthening its position in East Africa by expanding and upgrading its network, says MD Bashar Arafeh.
"Rollouts and upgrades are currently underway to encourage subscriber growth," he adds.
Telecom giant MTC, the parent company of Celtel Tanzania, is set to invest $165 million into the Celtel operation throughout this year to upgrade and extend the network, Arafeh says.
"The network is not as good as it should be, but we are aiming for a perfect network. We expect to inject $100 million into Celtel Tanzania after 2007, over and above the $165 million, to ensure subscriber growth," he says.
Celtel Tanzania has a subscriber base of 1.6 million active subscribers, and hopes to add another million this year. Arafeh says the subscriber base has grown 70% in the past year, more than the combined three years prior to 2006.
The challenge of building a large subscriber base in Tanzania is the vast land area that spans over a million square kilometres. The East African country also has a low average revenue per user (ARPU), making mobile penetration in the market a difficulty, Arafeh says.
He notes that MTC operations in the Middle East have a much faster penetration rate because of the high ARPU in those countries. "Mobile telecommunication penetration in Tanzania stands at around 15%, whereas Middle Eastern countries like Bahrain have a 100% penetration rate and above."
The growth strategy is part of MTC's acceleration, consolidation and expansion plan introduced earlier this year to encourage mobile telecommunication growth and development in Africa. MTC is also set to invest $2.5 billion into Celtel Nigeria.
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