{"id":44624,"date":"2013-08-22T11:03:30","date_gmt":"2013-08-22T09:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=44624"},"modified":"2013-08-22T11:48:28","modified_gmt":"2013-08-22T09:48:28","slug":"vodacom-to-invest-r1-28-billion-in-tanzania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/44624\/vodacom-to-invest-r1-28-billion-in-tanzania\/","title":{"rendered":"Vodacom to invest R1.28 billion in Tanzania"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tanzanian unit of South Africa’s Vodacom<\/a> plans to invest 200 billion shillings ($124 million) – or R1.28 billion – to expand its network this year but said rising taxes could stifle the sector.<\/p>\n

Rene Meza<\/a>, the managing director of the largest mobile phone operator in Tanzania, said on Wednesday he expects more growth in subscriber numbers this year despite stiff competition.<\/p>\n

“This year will see us invest over 200 billion shillings in network expansion, data and M-Pesa<\/a> (mobile phone cash transfer service),” the Vodacom Tanzania managing director told Reuters.<\/p>\n

Telecommunications is the fastest-growing sector in east Africa’s second-biggest economy and the government is keen to get a higher share of revenue from it.<\/p>\n

But mobile phone operators say the government’s introduction of a new tax of 1,000 shillings per month on every SIM card and an excise duty of 0.15 percent on money transfers could hurt investment.<\/p>\n

They argue the SIM card tax will delay expansion of mobile phone use among the poor majority in rural areas – around 23 million Tanzanians do not use mobile services.<\/p>\n

The tax was introduced from the start of July this year but the president ordered its enforcement to be frozen pending a review after a public outcry.<\/p>\n

“The mobile industry in Tanzania is already heavily taxed. Additional taxes will definitely discourage investment particularly for rural expansion,” Meza said.<\/p>\n

The nation of 45 million people has a mobile penetration rate of 48 percent, or about 22 million subscribers, according to the Mobile Operators Association of Tanzania (MOAT).<\/p>\n

Vodacom Tanzania had about 9.7 million users by June. Other mobile operators in the country include Airtel Tanzania, the local subsidiary of India’s Bharti Airtel<\/a> Tigo Tanzania, a unit of Millicom International Cellular < and Zantel, part of the UAE’s Etisalat<\/p>\n

($1 = 1617.0000 Tanzanian shillings)<\/p>\n

More on Vodacom<\/h3>\n

Vodacom Please Call Me case pushes ahead: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vodacom in mammoth maiden tower deal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom: the good and the not so good<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom SA customers flattening out<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Vodacom hunts 30,000 SME clients<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Tanzanian unit of South Africa’s Vodacom plans to invest R1.28 billion to expand its network this year, but said rising taxes could stifle the sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":38329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[26,1417,27],"class_list":["post-44624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-headline","tag-tanzania","tag-vodacom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44624"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44627,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44624\/revisions\/44627"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}