Zain targets 3.8 million users by end-2008

Zain Tanzania, a unit of the Kuwaiti group Zain, is looking to increase its mobile subscriber base by 15% to 3.8 million between now and the end of the year, according to Reuters citing a senior company executive. Khaled Muhtadi, the unit’s managing director, said the operator, formerly known as Celtel Tanzania, had spent USD440 million on its network over the last four years and planned to invest more than USD180 million on it next year. ‘We have reached over 3.3 million customers today and our target is to exceed 3.8 million by the end of the year,’ he said. The Zain official went on to say that the key challenges facing the cellco in its bid for expansion were falling subscriber revenues (particularly from new customers), the high cost of handsets and the slow movement of equipment and supplies through the port and customs.