Survey: Few Tanzanians Use Cellphones for Business
APA-Dar es Salaam(Tanzania) In spite of improved telecommunications in Tanzania, this is likely to have contributed little to boosting the economic growth as well as to reducing poverty in the country, an official survey has revealed here.
The survey indicated on Tuesday that only a quarter of cellular phone subscribers use them for business and the remainder for personal purposes.
The country has more than eight million mobile phone users compared with 5.6 million in 2006 and nearly 7.6 million by September last year, the survey showed.
It added that a decade ago, the country had only 36,143 mobile telephony subscribers.
However, the government study has shown that the trend has helped bridge the digital gap in the country as well as the telecommunications service discrepancy between rural and urban areas.
According to the "Views of the People, Growth and Reduction of Income Poverty" survey, 35 percent of the adult respondents said they owned mobile phones, and 65 percent of them are in Dar es Salaam, while the rate is 16 percent outside the commercial city.
The Tanzania Communications Authority said while the population is growing at nearly three percent annually, the annual number of Tanzanians subscribing for a telephone line is rising by 47 per cent.
"Though the subscription is growing at a higher rate than that of population, there is still a huge gap. Figures show clearly that the larger population of Tanzanians (at least 80.6 percent) do not have telephone lines," the regulator noted in a market report.
The number of people owning mobiles is projected to increase to between 15 and 18 million by 2015.
Posted to the site on 28th May 2008
