A recent research by Business Monitor International suggests that the Tanzanian mobile market could see a lot of growth if the rural coverage would be improved.
This has seen the country only achieve less than 60 per cent coverage for mobile networks.
The research also highlights the high cost of expanding the networks to rural areas.
“Furthermore, there is a strong case to pursue revenue growth by providing advanced data services in urban areas, as opposed to rural roll-out, to offset the impact of declining revenues from traditional voice services,” the report said.
But the operators have seen an increase in value added services such as mobile money transfer, with Tanzania recording over 5 million users on MPesa.
The research also showed that the mobile sector grew by just 3.25% in 2012, compared to 22.3% in 2011, owing to inactive SIM disconnections by some operators.