Macra says survey will improve ICT services
Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) says a survey on access and usage of information and communications technology (ICT) will help Malawians to take stock of achievements and gaps in the sector.
Macra director general Godfrey Itaye said this yesterday in Blantyre at the launch of the survey report on household and individual access and usage of ICT services, adding the findings would also act as motivation and a road map to make ICT a catalyst for economic growth in the country.
He said the main objective of the national survey, commissioned by Macra and conducted by National Statistical Office (NSO), was to establish reliable data on access and usage of ICT services at household and individual levels as a baseline and comparable statistic with other countries.
Said Itaye: “Let these findings, therefore, be our wake-up call and reignite us into action to make Malawi yet another ICT success story… It rests with all of us to make a collective contribution in narrowing the access gap that is there in ICT services.”
The survey conducted between November 2014 and January 2015 established that the use of mobile phones in Malawi was at 45 percent. It found that 85.1 percent of Malawians use the mobile phones in the urban and 42 percent in the rural.
Only 10 percent of the population, the survey revealed, have access to and use television, with 46.3 percent of them in urban areas and as low as 6.2 percent in the rural.
For mobile phone operators, the survey rated Airtel, at 55.9 percent, as a company with the highest subscription base, TNM at 43.7 percent and Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL) at 0.3 percent.
