[1][3] Airtel Tanzania was the first telecom company to launch General Packet Radio Service/Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (GPRS/EDGE)[4] service in Tanzanian Market on 3 April 2006.

In the aftermath, Celtel International, at that time MSI, which has its headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands, together with Detecon from Germany, obtained 35% shares from the Government of Tanzania.

The changes was because the numbers of subscribers in the country was very low (i.e. a total of 37,940 in 1998) and operators were concentrating on a few zones only (i.e. the coastal area near Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar).

In early August 2005, Celtel Tanzania and TTCL were legally separated, allowing each to administer its own financial and business operations.

[6] In September 2007 Celtel's Parent Company MTC Group was acquired by Zain (Arabic for 'beautiful, good and wonderful') unifying its different brands in 22 Countries.

Following talks in Dar es Salaam, between John Magufuli, the president of Tanzania and Sunil Mittal, the chairman of Bharti Airtel, held in January 2019, the India-based conglomerate agreed to cede more shareholding to the government, in order to settle existing ownership disputes.

[11] This service has been extended to India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka where airtel Africa users would not have to change their sim cards to operate freely in the three Asian nations.