MIC Tanzania Limited
Parent Axian Group | |
Tigo is a telecommunication company in Tanzania.
With over 13.5 million registered subscribers to their network, Tigo, directly and indirectly, employs over 300,000 Tanzanians including an extended network of customer service representatives, mobile money merchants, sales agents and distributors.[1]
Tigo is the biggest commercial brand of Millicom, an international company trading in 12 countries with commercial operations in Africa and Latin America and corporate offices in Europe and the USA.
History
In 1993, there was liberalization of
Mobitel
The company began operations in 1994 under the name Mobitel and launched Tanzania's first cellular (analogue) service. In 1998 the company expanded significantly and began pre-paid service under the brand "Simu Poa" and began issuing pre-paid cards under the brand "Kadi Poa".[3]
In 1999 Adesemi Tanzania another telecommunication company operating in the country was acquired by Mobitel and it gave Mobitel customers access to the companies Private Automatic Branch Exchange networks.[4] At the time Mobitel was the first company in Africa that provided subscription-free Internet services under their "MobiNet" brand.[5]
in September 2000, with a partnership with
In February 2004, MIC's parent company Millicom International Cellular took over the 26% stake from the government to control 84% of the company's equity.[7]
Re-branding to tiGO
In February 2006, after buying out its minority shareholders, the Luxembourg-based pan-African mobile
After this take over the company re-branded the company from "Buzz" to "tiGO", in line with the company's operations globally. Since then the company has been at the fore-front of innovation and has grown its customer base tremendously.
Initial public offering
In December 2016, in accordance to the government law, tiGO Tanzania applied to list the company on the Dar es Salaam Stock Exchange,[8] but as of April 9 2019 it was yet to go public.[9]
Mobile Services
Mobile money
Tigo like all telecommunication brands in Tanzania operates Mobile money services. Currently tigo operates the second largest network and subscriber base for mobile money services in Tanzania.[10] In 2014, the company became the first company in the world to share its profit with its subscribes through mobile money. The company issues quarterly dividends to customers based on their daily balance in their Mobile wallet.
Tigo Pesa also became, in 2014, the first in Africa to provide a fully inter operable mobile money service network; that allowed its customers to trade money between Vodacom, Airtel and Zantel.[11] The service also extended to Tigo in Rwanda and the company was the pioneer in East Africa's first cross-border money transfer mobile wallet product. The gateway allowed customers in Rwanda and Tanzania to send money to tiGO customers in the respective countries.[12]
4G LTE
In December 2015, Tigo Tanzania launched 4G LTE services in Dar es Salaam. The company was the first in the country to bring 4G and 3G speeds to its customers and possibly one of the first companies in Africa to provide LTE services.[13]
Statistics
The Table below shows the number of subscribers tiGO has in December of the year based on figures by
Registered Subscribers | Market Share | Mobile Money Subscribers | Market Share | Notes | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2012 | 6,370,796 | 24% | N/A | N/A | [14] |
2013 | 6,297,288 | 23% | N/A | N/A | [15] |
2014 | 8,624,638 | 25% | N/A | N/A | [16] |
2015 | 11,115,991 | 28% | 5,252,523 | 30% | [17] |
2016* | 11,606,567 | 29% | 5,584,052 | 32% | [18] |
2017 | 11,062,852 | 27.7% | 6,091,578 | 27% | [18] |
2020 | 12,660,697 | 25% | 8,754,060 | 28 | 19 |
- ^* Reports numbers as of Dec 2017.
See also
References
- ^ "Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority 2020 Quarterly Statistics". Retrieved 4 March 2021.
- ^ [1] Invitation to Investors To Purchase the Government Shares in MIC (Tanzania) Limited (Trading as MOBITEL)
- ^ "Tanzania - Telecoms Market Overview & Statistics" (PDF). africantelecomsnews.com. Paul Budde Communication Pty Ltd.
- ^ "The Last Place to Start a Company". www.ghanaweb.com. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
- ^ "Winne.com - Report on Tanzania, Getting ready for take off". www.winne.com. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
- ^ "TANZANIA - Remote Memory/GSM cards: 0101-0120".
- ^ a b TeleGeography. "Millicom buys out Mobitel Tanzania". www.telegeography.com. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
- ^ "Tigo Tanzania applies for IPO as share listing deadline nears". Reuters. 2016-12-14. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
- ^ "Tigo in plans to list on the DSE by end of June". The East Africa. 2019-04-09. Retrieved 2020-03-29.
- ^ TeleGeography. "Tigo Tanzania pays profit to its 3.6m Tigo-Pesa users". www.telegeography.com. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
- ^ "Millicom | The Digital Lifestyle". www.millicom.com. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
- ^ "Tanzania: Tigo Pioneers Money Transfer Between Rwanda and Tanzania". Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam). 2014-02-25. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
- ^ "Tigo Tanzania launches 4G LTE". BiztechAfrica. Retrieved 2017-01-10.
- ^ "TCRA Statistics December 2012" (PDF).
- ^ "TCRA Statistics December 2013" (PDF).
- ^ "TCRA Statistics December 2014" (PDF).
- ^ "TCRA Statistics December 2015" (PDF).
- ^ a b "TCRA Statistics Dec 2017" (PDF). TCRA. Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority. December 2017. Retrieved 28 August 2018.