4G

ZAMBIA 4G NETWORK KEY FIGURES

Zambia’s 4G/LTE network grew to 4,330 sites by the end of 2024, up 10.3% during the year, according to the Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority’s 2024 Annual Market Report, as overall mobile population coverage reached 95.7%.

4G/LTE sites accounted for 29.8% of Zambia’s 14,519 total telecommunication sites at the end of 2024, close behind 2G at 35.8% and 3G at 31.0%, while 5G, though still just 3.3% of sites, was the fastest growing technology at 51.1%.

4G/LTE Network Expansion

The total number of telecommunications sites in Zambia increased 10.6% in 2024, rising from 13,125 to 14,519, driven by network expansion across multiple technologies^[1]. Within this, 4G/LTE sites grew 10.3%, from 3,926 to 4,330, representing 29.8% of all sites at the end of 2024, essentially unchanged from 29.9% a year earlier as other technologies expanded at similar or faster rates^[1]. By comparison, 2G sites grew 8.9% to 5,202 and 3G sites grew 9.8% to 4,508, while 5G sites, though still a small base, grew fastest at 51.1%, rising from 317 to 479 and reaching 3% of total sites by December 2024^[1]. The total number of telecommunication towers also rose, from 3,568 to 3,626 in 2024, with 58 new installations, nearly half of them deployed in underserved areas under the Universal Access Project^[1].

Overall Network Coverage

Increased telecommunications infrastructure investment by both public and private entities lifted Zambia’s mobile cellular geographical coverage to 77% and population coverage to 95.7% by the end of 2024^[1]. ZICTA attributed the improvement to infrastructure investment, the digitalisation of government services including more than 300 services now available on the Government Service Bus, and the completed phasing out of scratch cards during the year, which reduced mobile network operators’ operational costs and allowed resources to be redirected to other productive activities^[1].

Investment Opportunities

With geographic coverage at 77% against population coverage of 95.7%, a meaningful share of Zambia’s land area, concentrated in rural and underserved regions, remains outside mobile network reach, and ZICTA’s own report describes the modest pace of tower expansion, only 58 new towers in 2024, as falling short of the investment needed to close this gap, with nearly half of new towers built under the Universal Access Project specifically targeting underserved areas^[1]. The 5G segment’s 51.1% site growth rate, still from a small base of under 500 sites nationally, further marks out next-generation network infrastructure as the fastest-growing segment of Zambia’s telecommunications build-out for infrastructure investors^[1].

Last Update: September 2026

References

1. Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority, 2024 Annual Market Report for the ICT Sector, February 2025