Ugandans use nearly 50% of their internet data on TikTok -UCC

Uganda Communication Commission has said that nearly 50% of internet data usage in Uganda is on TikTok.

“40% of all Ugandan data consumers are on TikTok accounts,” Julianne Mweheire,  the  director industry affairs and content development at UCC said on Wednesday.

She was speaking during a four-day Joint Regional Economic and Commercial Diplomacy Retreat at Serena Hotel Kigo in Wakiso districts.

Mweheire said Uganda has 4.4 million users on TikTok who account for  296470 gigabytes of data per month, followed by WhatsApp users with 94494 gigabytes data consumed on average per month.

Telegram and WhatsApp calls follow in that order in term of data usage in Uganda, according to UCC.

The Uganda Communication Commission official revealed that in the past two years, the trend of data consumption has changed greatly with a number of consumers preferring using data for video communication.

On the cost of data, Mweheire said this has gone down by more than 50% since 2019.

“Mobile operators have since 2019 reduced data prices by 51%.”

She said the price per gigabyte of data is also low, in comparison with other East African countries with one gigabyte going for $0.86 in Uganda, $0.76 in Rwanda, $0.97 in Kenya, $1.53 in Tanzania, $40 in South Sudan and $0.83 in South Africa.

Smartphones

The official from UCC said with only 16 million smartphones in Uganda, the penetration of these devices is still very low, an aspect she attributed to taxes.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs permanent Secretary, Vincent Bagiire said the 40% tax on smartphones is still hindering the penetration of the digital devices in the country.

“Whereas we have 35 million active simcards, we only have 16 million smartphones. Of the 16 million, some people own more than one. This means the rest of the simcards are used in feature phones,” Bagiire said.

“We need to know that telecom companies make more money on data than on voice calls but the tax on smartphones is not smart at all and hinders penetration of smartphones. If more smartphones penetrated the market,  URA would be collecting more taxes. We must rethink the 40% tax on smartphones.”