Uganda telecoms depend on mass mobile tech - study

Pyramid Research says the future of Uganda's telecommunications sector will depend on who can get to the mass market with mobile technologies. Pyramid has published a report entitled 'Uganda: Intense Competition, Mobile Rollouts and Lower Prices to Boost 3G Services'. It says a mixture of technologically simpler yet 'sticky' data services, such as mobile money, and more advanced applications using 3G, will be the key to revenue generation in the mobile segment. The report is based on proprietary data from Pyramid's research and analyses both the fixed and mobile sectors, tracks the market shares of technologies and services, and monitors the introduction and spread of new technologies. Pyramid believes that the main drivers of growth in Uganda will be the continuing expansion of mobile subscriptions into rural areas, declining costs of voice services, as well as international bandwidth thanks to connections to coastal countries with undersea cables, further investments in 3G and intensifying competition for broadband networks. On the mobile side, the low penetration level, along with the presence of seven mobile operators, will generate increasing voice and data revenue. In the fixed segment, urban areas offer vast opportunity for growth of broadband, and deployment of fixed wireless can aid further expansion, he adds.