Mozambique Country Commercial Guide
Learn about the market conditions, opportunities, regulations, and business conditions in mozambique, prepared by at U.S. Embassies worldwide by Commerce Department, State Department and other U.S. agencies’ professionals
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Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
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Overview

Mozambique’s digital transformation has undergone rapid acceleration since 2020. World Bank highlights that only 32% of the population had access to the internet in 2021. Furthermore, more than half of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have not initiated the digital transformation process. Nevertheless, it is a common goal shared by the Mozambican Government, multilaterals, private sector, and institutional investors to make existing infrastructure projects viable and increase the speed of implementation of digital transformation programs.  Additionally, the Government of Mozambique was approved for $150 million grant from the World Bank to support Digital Governance and Economy Project (EGDE) which focuses on increasing access to civil identification, digital public services and improving digital business opportunities.

The telecommunications market is structured around three vertically integrated operators including: Vodacom, a private enterprise majorly owned by South Africa’s Vodacom Group; Movitel, a joint venture between the Viettel Group of Vietnam and Mozambique’s ruling party Frelimo; and Tmcel, a merger between Mozambique’s former telecommunication state owned enterprise (TDM) and cellular network provider (Mcel). Although Vodacom is the dominant mobile phone operator in Mozambique with almost 50% market share, Tmcel is the only entity that continues to offer integrated fixed line service. According to World Bank, Mozambique registered approximately 16 million mobile subscriptions in 2020 which corresponds to more than half of the population.

The high cost of devices, especially smart phones, a low 48% literacy rate, and unfamiliarity with the Internet pose as major barriers to internet connectivity. Furthermore, the high connectivity discrepancy between rural and urban areas fueled by limited access to electricity and financial services continues to plague rural households. Conversely, emerging mining and energy projects continue to drive ICT infrastructure investments in rural areas.

Leading Sub-Sectors

Broadband

Almost three-quarters of the population cannot afford internet services or e-devices such as smartphones and computers. Furthermore, a third of the population live in rural areas without any mobile broadband signal and cannot afford to connect at any price. Such causes major connectivity discrepancy between urban and rural connectivity.  Maputo is Mozambique’s largest and best-connected city, although challenges in infrastructure, market maturity and affordability cripple connectivity throughout the country. Additionally, data traffic is expensive to carry out of Maputo. This has resulted in data becoming more expensive in the north of the country than in the south.

Mozambique aims to tackle this discrepancy by improving infrastructure and enhance connectivity and ICT access in rural areas. Although the country was previously served by two subsea cables, the Land2Africa consortium backed up by Meta, announced the landing of two major submarine cable system in the both Maputo-Southern Mozambique as well Nacala City, in Northern region of the country.   Similarly, Starlink, the satellite internet service from SpaceX, launched operations. Not only does the company plan to connect rural areas of the country, but the announcement of its market entry immediately brought down data prices from incumbent companies.

Cybersecurity

Mozambique’s digital transformation also brings new threats to end-users, including the Mozambican Government and the private sector. Public entities face looming challenges and risks from the online storage of information of citizens who depend on public services. As a result, the Government of Mozambique has identified cybersecurity as a priority segment to the country’s digital transformation process.

The National Cybersecurity Strategy aims to implement 25 projects by 2025 and established a multi-sectoral council with a mandate to coordinate a governance framework. The government tends to include minimum cybersecurity requirements in public procurement contracts to meet minimum ICT requirements, but with the digital transition there is a demand for outsourced solutions, such as encryption for network access, intrusion prevention systems (IPS), advanced persistent threat (APT), email phishing security, and cybersecurity training.

 Cloud Computing

Within the past years, Mozambique witnessed an increasing number of data center launch managed by private companies. On the other hand, the Government of Mozambique operates Maluana Park as part of the government’s e-governance strategy, to centralize and host the government’s public administration computing systems.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Heroku, and Microsoft Azure are among the many international companies that offer cloud services to Mozambique, but do not operate their own in-country data centers. However, U.S. investment firm Roha, which aims to build and operate a world-class tier 3 data center in partnership with high-tech group Raxio.

Opportunities

Many opportunities exist for U.S. companies that can develop secure and resilient critical information infrastructure (CII), including:

  • $150 million grant from the World Bank to support the Digital Governance and Economy Project to improve digital public services and digital business opportunities
  • Affordable software solutions for SMEs
  • Radio digital migration
  • Establishment of two data centers in the North (Mocuba and Nacala)
  • Infrastructure improvement for its E-Government Network
  • Multimedia Community Centers