Zambia's mobile telecommunications subsector has expanded by over 22% in the last year, reaching K9.5 billion (US$389,65 million).

That is according to the 2023 Annual Market Report for the Information and Communication Technologies Sector, which was just released by the country's industry regulator.

The Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) reported an increase from K7.8 billion ($319.93 million) in 2022.

“Overall, the increase in mobile network operator (MNO) revenues was attributed to the continued growth in adoption of ICTs, particularly mobile cellular technology for various uses and is expected to increase reinvestments in the subsector,” ZICTA stated in the report.

There was a marginal increase in the total number of active mobile cellular subscriptions at the end of 2023 relative to that of 2022.

Total number of active mobile cellular subscriptions increased by 6.4 percent to 21.1 million subscribers in 2023 from 19.8 million subscribers in 2022.

ZICTA forecasts the number of mobile cellular subscribers to increase to 21.9 million at the end of 2024 further to 22.8 million subscriptions at the end of 2025 and 23.6 million subscriptions at the end of 2026.

“The increase in the number of subscriptions is expected to translate into higher internet usage and mobile cellular traffic resulting in an overall growth of the ICT sector.”

According to the report, Airtel’s market share now stands at 48,6 percent reflecting a 2.2 percentage points increase from 2022. MTN Zambia is at 32,6 percent after dropping 3.3 percent. Zamtel reported a 1 percent increase to 18.8 percent.

The number of telecommunication sites in Zambia increased by 8.2 percent to 12 975 sites in 2023 from 11 987 sites.

5G sites constitute 1.3 percent of the sites. 2G sites constitute the largest proportion of sites accounting for nearly 36.8 percent of the sites.