Tanzania: Sh300 Million Daily SMS Craze

The short messaging service (SMS) craze has gripped mobile phone users in the country, whose nimble fingers are generating a whopping Sh300 million in revenue for the mobile phone companies every day.

With more people owning the increasingly affordable handsets, the traffic has surged to a record 5.1 million text messages daily, and this helped largely by the general belief among the subscribers that it's cheaper to text than to make a call.

Source: By allafrica.com on 19th June 2013

Tanzania’s Healthy Pregnancy Text Message Service Reaches 100,000 Subscribers in 15 Weeks

SMS service is going into HEALTH CARE sector which bring more pregnancy awareness to the public in an easy way....

The unique healthy pregnancy text messaging (SMS) service reached 100,000 active registrants in March 2013. More than 4 million text messages have been sent to those who signed up for the free healthy pregnancy and safe motherhood information, since the launch late November 2012.

“Wazazi Nipendeni’ (Parents Love Me) is a national healthy pregnancy and safe motherhood multi-media campaign. The mHealth Tanzania Public Private Partnership strengthen this campaign by providing informative text messages and appointment reminders in Swahili at no charge for pregnant women and mothers of newborn babies up to 16 weeks of age. This service offers also free information to her supporters - such as husband, friends and family - and information seekers”, explains Sarah Emerson, Country Manager, mHealth Tanzania Partnership, CDC Foundation.

The Wazazi Nipendeni multi-media campaign includes promotion of the free text messaging service by listing the short-code on the campaign materials and instructs anyone interested in more information about healthy pregnancy to send the word ‘MTOTO’ (child) to the short-code 15001. Registrants receive instructional messages during registration, allowing them to indicate the woman’s current week or month of pregnancy (or the age of the newborn baby) during the enrollment process. “This process allows the recipients to receive specific text messages at the time the information is most relevant to them. The service registered an average of 7000 people per week. Healthcare partners such as the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation (EGPAF) and the Aga Khan Health Services - Joining Hands Initiative - play an important role by supporting the registration assistance of pregnant women at the healthcare facility level.

Eliza’s experience
“I found the text messages on my phone very useful during the period of my pregnancy”, says Eliza (29). This first-time mother was part of a group of women that gave feedback on the informative messages before the service started. She registered for the service as soon as it was launched in November 2012. “I was happy to receive the ‘Wazazi Nipendeni’ information about my pregnancy. I liked the helpful tips, including the importance of attending clinics regularly. I was able to learn about the need for testing and malaria prevention. I feel that it benefited me to know these things. I was able to go and deliver my baby safely since my baby was born healthy and without malaria. This service has also assisted my husband to better understand what I was going through during my pregnancy, so that he could be of greater assistance to me according to my needs.”

Eliza works as a housekeeper in Dar es Salaam and considers herself privileged when it comes to receiving information. She reads the newspapers and listens to radio. The housekeeper believes the service will especially be useful to women in remote areas as many have a mobile phone. “Many people, especially those living in rural areas, are not realizing how important it is to visit clinics”, she states. “They just don’t receive as much education and information as we do a big city. Newspapers are scarce there and not everyone has a radio. It also does not cost anything to get these text messages. So anyone can get the information from the Wazazi Nipendeni text messaging service. It will benefit many people, because it reaches all regions around the country.”

Government led initiative
Tanzania is a large country, it almost 900,000 square kilometers big. The country is approaching a population of 44 million. Current reports show that there are over 25 million mobile phone subscribers in our country. Tanzania registers the highest average number of text messages sent per month per subscriber in East Africa. The use of text messaging (SMS) doubled over the past few years to almost 5 billion messages in 2012. The mobile technology is therefore recognized by the ministry as a useful tool to offer crucial healthy pregnancy and safe motherhood information to even the most remote pregnant woman and her supporters.

Source: By Virtual Strategy Magazine on 28th March 2013

Tanzania: Mobile Phone Users Opt for Messages

THE number of on net traffic mobile phone calls declined by 2.6 per cent in the first quarter of 2012 compared to quarter ending December 2011, with many people opting for short messages (SMS) that more than doubled.

Official data released last week by Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA) shows that the number of on net calls declined to 4.63 billion in the quarter under review from 4.76 billion of the preceding period, a sign that many mobile users have opted to messages.

"The number of short messages sent through mobile phones more than doubled to 1.23 billion in the quarter ending March 2012 compared to only 598.74 million recorded in the period between October and December, last year," stated the report.

Total revenues garnered from the number of messages which exchanged hands among various mobile users jumped to 72.64bn/- in the period ending March compared to only 20.95bn/- accrued between October and December, 2011.

In the meantime the number of calls from one network to another declined by 3.31 per cent to 232.12 million
in the quarter under review compared to 240.07 million of the previous period.

But the number of mobile sms from one network system to another increased by 16.27 per cent to 324.80 million in March, this year compared to only 279.34 million messages. Tanzania lead in the East African region in terms of average number of text messages sent per month per subscriber.

Moving the 2012/13 budget estimates in Dodoma in June, this year, the Minister for Finance and Economic Affairs Dr William Mgimwa said the government has increased taxes on mobile phone calls by two per cent to 12 per cent, which will definitely impact on the rate of both on and off net calls.

The quarterly operator's subscriptions market shares show that Vodacom still leads with 45 per cent, Airtel 27 per cent, Tigo 21 per cent and Zantel six per cent.

Source by: Sebastian Mrindoko on 22 August 2012