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Tigo Tanzania announces free WhatsApp

By , ITWeb
Tanzania , 05 Feb 2016

Tigo Tanzania announces free WhatsApp

Tigo Tanzania has announced free WhatsApp services for customers with data enabled devices.

In a brief statement, the company claims it is the first telecom in the country to do this.

According to the company General Manager, Diego Gutierrez made the announcement in Dar es Salaam earlier in the week, and said all Tigo customers subscribing to the company's weekly and monthly internet will be entitled to free WhatsApp service.

"From now onwards, all Tigo customers buying any of our weekly or monthly packages will be eligible to enjoy free WhatsApp. This of course, is for customers with data enabled devices. We want to encourage our non-smartphone user customers to acquire highly discounted smartphones sold in Tigo shops to be able to enjoy this new offer," Gutierrez said.

According to Tigo the service will be available on iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Nokia Symbian60-phones, adding that the mobile messaging application has in excess of 1 billion users globally.

In 2014 Tigo partnered with Facebook to offer complimentary access in the country's national language Kiswahili.

The company claims it has expanded its network with the launch of over 500 sites over the past three years. This means it has over 2,000 network sites nationally.

Tigo plans to double this investment by 2017 in terms of coverage and additional capacity networks for deeper penetration in rural areas.

Last year the company announced an increased annual investment of US $ 120 million per year on infrastructure improvement and expansion which is 20% higher than Tigo's annual spending in the past three years.

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