ADDIS ABABA, March 27 (Xinhua) -- The number of internet users in Ethiopia has surpassed 41 million amid a rapidly growing number of mobile service subscribers, the country's state-run telecom firm has said.
Ethio-Telecom's Chief Executive Officer Frehiwot Tamiru while addressing a meeting on the performance of the Ethiopian government's digitization initiative, called Digital Ethiopia 2025 Tuesday, said the share of Ethiopians using the internet has shown steady growth, the Ethiopian News Agency reported.
The number of internet users in Ethiopia, which was 17 million in 2018, has now reached 41 million, she said, adding that the number of mobile service subscribers in the East African country has reached 85 million.
In October 2022, Safaricom Telecommunications Ethiopia Private Limited Company, Ethiopia's first private telecom firm, launched its mobile telecommunications network and services in the country, making it the second telecom service provider in the country alongside Ethio-Telecom.
Tamiru said the two telecom service providers in Ethiopia have created a network capacity that can handle more than 96 million, given Ethiopia's population is about 120 million.
As part of its ambition to provide modern telecom services to its users, Ethio-Telecom has been partnering with Chinese technology companies, mainly Huawei and ZTE, to realize its 4G and 5G LTE telecom services and expand high-tech telecom facilities across the country. ■
