Author(s): Leontine Nkebukwa, Esther Ngamba
This study investigated the use of mobile phones in enhancing sales revenue for street food vending Entrepreneurs: Mobile Phone Adoption in Bukoba Municipal, Tanzania. Increased access to mobile technologies has significantly contributed to almost all types of business. Mobile phones are one of the useful technologies that have been adopted and used by street food vendors as a tool for increasing sales revenues. Qualitative data were collected using in-depth interviews with 50 street traders, followed by 14 focus group discussions with 56 customers found in food kiosks eating. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The qualitative data collected through interviews and focus group discussion was analysed by using ANOVA while the quantitative data collected through questionnaires were analysed by using SPSS software. The results show that using mobile phones to search for new markets is scarcely practiced due to certain challenges, such as high costs, technical problems, misuse of mobile contact by customers, and a concentration of similar products in one location. The findings call for a reduction of mobile service costs, improvement of mobile infrastructure, and provision of education to street traders and customers so that they learn how to use mobile phones for business communication more effectively as well as to abide by communication ethics. Due to a number of reasons some food vendors are using mobile technology and are generating high revenue, while others do not and remain with large quantities of unsold food every day, hence the researcher was motivated to explore the factors behind it.