CEO Philip Besiimire revealed that Vodacom Tanzania is investing $100m into network improvements and upgrades during its new financial year, which kickstarted this month.
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Tawanda Karombo
JSE-listed telecoms giant Vodacom is investing $100 million to further improve its network and technology platforms in Tanzania, following up on a similar amount capital outlay last year.
Philip Besiimire, the CEO of Vodacom’s unit in Tanzania, said in an interview on Monday that this investment will help with shoring up the mobile operator’s network resilience.
Earlier this month, Vodacom Tanzania also completed a $28m upgrade of its mobile money platform, M-Pesa, helping to transition the operation into a smarter artificial intelligence (AI) driven mobile money ecosystem that is able to respond to growing demand for digital transactions.
Besiimire revealed that Vodacom Tanzania is investing $100m into network improvements and upgrades during its new financial year, which kickstarted this month.
“As we start our financial year, we plan to invest more than $100m to keep improving our network, technology platforms and customer experience,” Besiimire said.
He hopes that this investment will improve the telco’s network and result in a more reliable digital infrastructure and connectivity system.
Vodacom’s capital investments in its Tanzania operation have boosted energy-efficiency technologies with a view to optimise power consumption, lower carbon emissions, and generate substantial operational savings.
Besiimire said by upgrading its equipment and network, Vodacom Tanzania has been able to expand services, including for mobile money, to more people. The investments have resulted in the company using less space for towers in addition to overall network improvements.
About $19m of the $100m investment for 2025 was used to secure 3700MHz Time Division Duplex spectrum. The new spectrum has helped to boost capacity for future network expansion and unlock new opportunities for innovative product development.
For its mobile money platform, Vodacom Tanzania has implemented a cloud-native, active-active infrastructure that has optimized M-Pesa’s performance, minimized downtime, and accelerated time-to-market.
Advanced digital capabilities embedded in the newly upgraded platform will strengthen cybersecurity, enhance reliability, and deliver personalized financial experiences powered by data analytics and automation, Besiimire said.
He also revealed that M-Pesa now contributes nearly 40% of Vodacom Tanzania’s service revenue.
Network and platform modernization has been key for Vodacom Tanzania, which hopes to tap into the country’s growing smartphone penetration which now stands at about 41.8% or 28.5 million devices.
Besiimire said Vodacom Tanzania has recorded a 25% increase in smartphone users on its network during the nine-month period to the end of December 2025.
After Vodacom Tanzania network users were affected by a network outage in 2024 when a subsea cable was cut, Besiimire says the company is currently prioritizing network resilience, especially for mobile data connectivity.
“One of the most trying experiences was the subsea cable cut in 2024 (when) for nearly three days, our customers faced intermittent or even complete loss of internet access,” said Besiimire.
“These setbacks have driven me and my team to double down on strengthening our infrastructure resilience.”
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