Uganda’s Telecommunication sector shook off the COVID-19 impact to record Shs.3.5 trillion of gross revenues($1.007bn) for the year ending December 2020 according to the latest market report by Uganda Communications Commission (UCC).
This makes it the first time that the annual telecom sector revenues had crossed the US$1bn mark in 12 months.
In the months October-December 2020, the sector recorded Shs1.144 trillion of revenue compared to Shs1.095 trillion recorded in the third quarter (July to September 2020).
This incredible performance according to UCC report is attributed to sustained growth in digital and mobile financial services, jointly accounting for more than 39% of total quarterly revenues.
Meanwhile, the number of active internet subscriptions grew to 21.4 million by end of December 2020, translating into an internet access reach of more than one (1) active connection for every two (2) Ugandans.
UCC further indicates that the number of mobile money transactions during the quarter crossed the 1 billion transactions mark for the first time ever, surpassing the previous quarterly record of 954 million transactions posted in the months July to September 2020.
On domestic voice traffic, the market posted 14.8 billion minutes worth of volumes in the months October to December 2020 surpassing the earlier set domestic quarterly traffic record of 14.4 billion in the months July to September by more than 370 million minutes of talk. This performance translates into an average of 177 minutes per month for every active line.
Inspite of the COVID-19 impact, the report shows the number of new fixed and mobile subscriptions continued to climb up registering year-on-year growth of 4% to 1.3 million in months of October to December compared to 1 million recorded over the same period in 2019.
“This performance, coming on the backdrop of a 3 million subscriber erosion at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown in the second quarter (April to June 2020), points to a remarkable post-COVID-19 recovery in the sector” UCC report indicates.
