MTN Uganda’s mobile internet users grew by 85% during the past year to end of June 2013, according to the operator’s senior officials.

Ernst Fonternel, chief marketing officer at MTN Uganda, has said the telco now has 1.6 million mobile internet subscribers.

MTN's mobile internet trajectory is based on GPRS/EDGE, 3G and Long Term Evolution (LTE) in the East African country.

The telco launched its LTE mobile network earlier this year, which formed part of network expansion plans in that country.

MTN officials said the LTE network is planned to offer almost triple the speeds of existing mobile broadband connections available in Uganda.

Speaking about the roll-out of LTE Fonternel said, “Our challenge isn’t keeping ahead of the other operators. It’s keeping ahead of the tidal wave of data demand both in our country and in the region.”

“Last year we launched our 21.6Mbps data network and last month we rolled out our 42Mbps data network and now LTE,” he explained.

MTN Uganda says it has a 52.5% market share of that country’s mobile market. Other operators includes Bharti Airtel, Warid Telecom (Essar) and Smile Telecom.