The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) recently released the state of Uganda’s communication sector report 2018 and findings there have a lot of surprises. Mobile Money usage dropped by 3.6% largely to the Mobile Money tax while internet subscriptions all went up across mobile and fixed connections. What wasn’t spared are PayTV subscriptions that have also seen a rise pf 82.6% by the end of 2018.
Let us get into the numbers
In Q2 2018, Uganda only had around 1,198,389 subscriptions and this jumped to 2,188,233 by Q4 2018 thus recording a growth of 82.6%. I bet the 2018 World Cup in Russia had something to play for these numbers to go up, given the country is full of avid soccer lovers and the sporting main broadcasting channel is TV.
These are the current Pay TV players
These matches on top of other content are transmitted over satellite as well as DTT signals. As per the report, the country has 5 satellite TV providers namely DSTV, Startimes Sat, Zuku TV, Azam TV and now the defunct KweseTV.
Others broadcasting over digital terrestrial transmission (DTT) are Startimes and GoTV while Kampala CITI Cable was the only cable TV provider, wondering where is Zuku Fiber?
The 2.2M pay-TV subscriber figure is an amalgamation of subscribers from all the above though the report didn’t break down which pay-TV service providers have what subscribers.
Many areas of Uganda remain uncovered with DTT signals
However, what can’t go unnoticed is the geographical coverage of some of the players which paints a not so good picture, as swarths of lands are left uncovered. Apart from the satellite providers that cover the whole nation because well, it is satellite and these tend to be expensive, inexpensive options like DTT are mostly concentrated in Kampala, Wakiso, Mpigi, Masaka, Mbarara, Fort Portal, Jinja, Mukono, Kalangala, Luweero, Gulu and Mbale.
