A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillments of the Requirements for the Degree award of Master of Science in Marketing Management (MSc-MKT) of Mzumbe University.
A study of geographical market expansion of telecommunication services with reference to selected mobile service providers in Tanzania. The specific objectives of the study included; to identify factors affecting geographical market expansion of telecommunication services, to identify challenges facing geographical market expansion of telecommunication services, to analyze service provider’s perception towards geographical market expansion of telecommunication services and to provide suggestions to service providers towards geographical market expansion of telecommunication services. The study was conducted in Dar es Salaam and employed a case research design. The sample size of the study was 45 respondents that included staffs from general management, marketing, customer service and operations departments from mobile service providers. Simple random and purposive/judgmental sampling techniques were used to select sample size of the study. Data were collected through questionnaires and interview. The study found out that, service provider’s management, marketing and operations staffs identified operational issues and infrastructure respectively as factors affecting geographical market expansion of telecommunication services by service providers in Tanzania. The findings also indicate that, service provider’s management, marketing and operations staffs identified new technologies and low usage of mobile services respectively as challenges facing geographical market expansion of telecommunication services. Moreover, the findings indicate that, increased taxation of the telecoms sector is a major disincentive to geographical market expansion of telecommunication services in Tanzania. The study recommended that, government should intervene to support operational issues relating to network expansion of telecommunication services and also improve infrastructure to facilitate service provider’s access to wide range of geographical market expansion. Service providers should continue not only to adopt new technologies but all to disseminate new technology to users of both urban and rural and also to provide education and awareness upon usage of mobile service especially to their rural customers. The Government should lower taxes in order to give access to mobile service providers to plan to invest in network deployment in rural areas. The government should intervene and continue to provide subsidies to mobile service providers on network deployment in rural areas.