After Helios Towers Africa’s recent acquisition of 1,149 towers from Vodacom Tanzania, TowerXchange thought it would be a good time to examine the tower market in Tanzania
The Tanzanian market evolved with a distinctly regional pattern to network rollout, with each of the four tier one MNOs (Vodacom, Airtel, Tigo and Zantel) dominant in different regions. Market leaders Vodacom are particularly strong in the Arusha area, just behind them in market share are Airtel, who are dominant in the Lake Zone, while Tigo is strong in coastal areas and Zantel are very strong in Zanzibar.
Tanzania also hosts several tier two, niche operators and ISPs including Smile, which is rolling out LTE, TTCL, Benson and Sasatel, as well as active infrastructure sharing pioneers Rural NetCo.
With operators seeking to expand beyond their regionalised footprint, but the politics of tower swaps complicated, Tanzania was an obvious target for exponents of the independent towerco model.
Helios Towers Africa acquired 1,180 towers from Millicom-Tigo in 2011, and have reportedly improved service levels. Helios Towers Africa recently added the aforementioned 1,149 towers, constituting the entire Vodacom Tanzania network. Tigo and Vodacom are now minority shareholders in Helios Towers Tanzania, owning 24.5% each. TowerXchange features an interview with Helios Towers Africa CFO Andres de Orleans-Borbon here.
Reports suggest Zantel’s towers could be the next portfolio to change hands in Tanzania, while Airtel has registered an Africa Towers subsidiary in the country.
Tanzania looks set to become a keenly observed example of how independent towercos can accelerate infrastructure sharing, stablise and improve opex, and support the extension of networks into rural areas!
Tanzania market overview
The GSMA Green Power for Mobile Programme published an excellent report which TowerXchange recommends to our readers; ‘Powering Telecoms: East Africa Market Analysis’. In the report, the GSMA size the Tanzanian market as having 4,593 cell sites in Q3 2012, up from 3,671 in 2011, and forecast an increase in the number of base stations to 5,474 by 2013. The same report quantifies the number of subscribers in Tanzania as 26.8m in 2012, with penetration of mobile services at 62% and coverage at 75.8% of the population.
According to the IEA, World Bank, urban electrification is just 40% in Tanzania, and rural electrification 2%. The 2009 Electricity Act set a target to raise electrification to 30% of the Tanzanian population by 2015.
The GSMA count 1,442 of Tanzania’s cell sites being off-grid, with 30.7% of off-grid sites running DG 24x7, 65.5% running DG-battery hybrid, and just 56 sites (3.9%) classified as Green Power. 52% of the remaining 3,151 on-grid sites were classified as unreliable (receiving less than 6 hours of grid power per day). As a result, diesel makes up 57% of opex at on-grid sites in Tanzania.
TowerXchange’s Tanzania case study continues with:
A view of Tanzania from the front lines of the market’s leading managed service provider NEWL
