By Silvia Nyambura
The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) Annual market and industry report estimates mobile phone users in Uganda have increased by 13.9% for financial year 2014/15. This translates to 21,910,948 compared to the 19,244,020 users registered in the previous financial year.
According to the report, this follows an additional 2,815,763 new mobile subscribers registered by June 2015. In addition, the number of internet users continued to grow as estimated. For the period under review, the number of internet users grew by 52% to register 12,986,216 compared to 8,531,081 in the previous financial year. UCC Media Relations Specialist Isaac Kalembe believes between 8 and 9 million of these are on mobile devices. Uganda now has an internet penetration rate of 37.3% as of June 2015 coming second only to Kenya which has 68.8%. Rwanda, Tanzania and Burundi follow suit with 25.4%, 22% and 5.7% respectively.
Generally the sector registered 63.9% tele-density up from 53.3% realized in 2013/14. Kenya registered the highest at 86% followed by Rwanda with 73%, Tanzania at 71% and Burundi at 31.1%.
Mobile Money services have continued to register fast growth. In the review period, the number of subscribers grew by 10% to record 19,490,935 compared to the previous 17,644,162. The number of transactions also grew by 24% to record 46,255,000 while the value of transactions grew by 43.4% recording about Ushs 3.6 trillion.
The total sector contribution to revenue grew by 40.9% up from Ushs 434.75 billion to Ushs 484.42 billion in 2014/15. This reflects a higher growth rate than the 3.3% growth realized previously.
From a global perspective, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), in 2015 there are more than 7 billion mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide. This is up from less than 1 billion in 2000, corresponding to a world penetration rate of 97%.
Over 3.2 billion people from all over the world are using the Internet 2 billion of which are from developing countries. Of the 940 million people living in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), only 89 million use the Internet, corresponding to a 9.5% penetration rate. Between 2000 and 2015, global Internet penetration grew 7 fold from 6.5% to 43%.
See full Report here:UCC Annual Market & Industry Report
