Zamtel confident of ICT sector growth

BUUMBA CHIMBULU writes @SunZambian ZAMTEL is confident that the Zambian Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector will continue to register positive growth owing to increased levels of investment.The outlook for the ICT sector in Zambia is bright as more industry players are earmarked to continue investing in the sector, says Zamtel Corporate Communications Manager, Changwe Kabwe.Mr Kabwe explained in a statement that Zamtel, as one of the industry players, had continued with its network roll out with the construction of 1009 new communication towers across the country.Zamtel, he said, had over 700 new sites fully operational and servicing its customers mostly in hard to reach areas and that it was set to continue to roll out more sites in different parts of Zambia.He was commenting on the recently released ZICTA 2020 Mid-Year Market Report which has highlighted the ICT sector’s performance, growth prospects and constraints to growth.“Growing appetite for broadband services among corporates and retail clients will continue to spur growth in data consumption in the short to medium term.“With increased foot print, Zamtel is now set to be the largest mobile network operator offering network reliability across the country,” Mr Kabwe said.He said the Mid-Year 2020 Market Report indicated that the positive trajectory for the sector was going to continue.The industry, Mr Kabwe said, would continue to see increased investment which brought about a more stable network.Mr Kabwe said the report showed that the total number of telecommunication towers in Zambia increased from 2,462 reported at the end of the first half of 2019 to 3,245 at the end of the first half of 2020.This, he explained, spoke to the investments that Zamtel and other players had made in the sector.“The Report shows that the total number of telecommunication sites that were operational in the country increased from 8,227 reported at the end of June, 2019 to 10,338 reported at the end of June, 2020 representing an increase of 25.7 percent.“We can see that these figures speak to the investments that we have made as Zamtel in network roll out and upgrades,” he said. The Sun