This blog is (usually) written on a Sceptred Isle whose citizens (subjects) are currently wondering what life is going to be like under a newly cobbled-together coalition government. This is rather a novel state of affairs because the our electoral system is carefully rigged designed to crown a decisive winner and deliver the 'strong government' we Brits are supposed to favour. Usually this works out fine, with a healthy majority and almost unchecked power conferred upon the winners. There's never even been the need for those 'winners' to command a majority share of the votes cast, much less the support of a majority of those eligible to vote.
During its election campaign, the senior partner in the new government issued dire warnings about the terrible consequences should the voters be unwise enough to elect a hung parliament. The markets, we were warned, would respond unfavourably, leaving our fragile economic recovery exposed to the fall out of their nervousness.
Perhaps this was not too far wide of the mark. The markets continue to be volatile in the early days of this new administration, with Nick Fletcher of the Guardian reporting another bumpy week of trading.
Bucking the current downward trend, however, writes Fletcher, is mobile behemoth Vodafone.
"The mobile phone group has had a busy week", observes Fletcher, winning an Indian 3G licence... and reporting a doubling of annual profits. Today, Fletcher reports, its shares have jumped 2p to 131.45p, making it the biggest riser in a falling FTSE, following reports it plans to sell its 55% stake in its Egyptian business.
One such report, from TeleGeography, suggests that the buyer of Vodafone's controlling stake in the Egyptian MNO may be incumbent wireline operator Telecom Egypt, already the owner of the other 45% of the business.
The article also suggests that if no agreement can be reached between Vodafone and Telecom Egypt, the fixed-line operator may seek another route into the domestic mobile sector, perhaps trying to secure its own wireless licence, should the government, as rumoured, offer a fourth mobile concession in the future.
Maarten Pieters: Vodafone India CEO predicts market consolidation
Last week, a broad range of news outlets were carrying the claim that just 31% of the population of India were known to have access to a toilet and 'improved sanitation' in 2008. This is clearly a regrettable state of affairs, with dire consequences for public health, life expectancy and economic development.
Ordinarily, however, it does not follow that the seriousness of an issue always correlates strongly with the willingness of the global media to give it coverage. It was a welcome surprise, then, to see this particular issue given some space even by the website of the thin, brightly coloured newspaper given free at UK railway stations to daily commuters such as myself. After all, this is an organ whose print version dedicates just a few pages to what I would really call 'news' - far more space is given over to celebrity tittletattle and TV listings.
How, then, did this story successfully compete for space even in that kind of context?
So how did Dr. Adeel manage to craft a headline sufficiently eye-catching so as to propel this important but unglamorous issue up the news agenda last week? He did so by building it around the assertion that more Indians have access to a mobile phone than to a working toilet. Presumably, the desired effect on readers in Europe and North America was to stimulate a thought process along the following lines: 'More cellphones than toilets? That's crazy! Toilets have been around forever and are one of the most basic facilities expected for a civilised life - but the mobile phone is a recently invented luxury item.'
Such a characterisation of the mobile device would be understandable when articulated by someone who ticks the following boxes:
lives in a wealthy, developed country and has not had the opportunity to see mobile phones being used on the city streets or in the villages of (for example) Kenya, India or Bangladesh
is old enough to remember when mobile phones were seen as an expensive status symbol used only by wealthy executives
has not thought about how access to communications services can improve the lives of poor people by connecting them with time-saving information and services
Regular readers of this blog, and anyone working in or around the telecoms sector in emerging markets/developing countries, however, would be much less likely to think of mobile phones in this way. They would probably be inclined to realise that is precisely because developing countries have weak infrastructure that the mobile phone has rapidly become a truly vital part of the lives of even very poor people in such nations. Numerous examples of this have been decribed in DTW posts passim. Rather than trawl through all of those, readers might like to look at a nicely succinct round up of observations on this topic, made recently Anand Giridharadas, writing for the New York Times.
Giridharadas observes that there is "a global flowering of innovation on the simple cellphone" and that "from Brazil to India to South Korea and even Afghanistan, people are seeking work via text message; borrowing, lending, and receiving salaries on cellphones; employing their phones as flashlights, televisions and radios." He goes on to assert that "many do all this for peanuts", noting that "in India, Reliance Communications sells handsets for less than [USD] 25, with one-cent-a-minute phone calls across India and one-cent text messages and no monthly charge — while earning fat profits."
Readers of this blog, particularly any working in India's mobile sector, might on one hand take pride in seeing such achievements talked up but may, on the other hand, not fully recognise the idea of an industry revelling in 'fat' profits.
Certainly, the feeling in India may be that at the very low tariff levels referred to by Giridharadas, not all operators may continue to be viable. Sypmathetic to this view is Maarten Pieters, CEO Of Vodafone India. Speaking to the Economic Times last week, Pieters observed: "It’s all about scale because we have very low tariffs here. If you compared the tariffs here, it’s about 10% or what we get in Europe in the Vodafone Group as an average tariff. So, how can you survive as an operator on those low tariffs that is by creating scale and it is very clear that it will not be able for 10 people or 10 operators to create that scale, which means there needs to be some form of consolidation".
Pieters does not expect this consolidation of the mobile market to happen overnight, however, because it would not be facilitated by India's current M&A rules. "So, we first need to see some changes of the rules and then you will probably see consolidation."
Indian mobile operators, then, have to strive for profitability in an extremely tough environment. Quite often, I have heard industry watchers articulate the view that this should equip the country's cellcos very well for meeting the challenges of extracting a profit from developing countries elsewhere in the world. Also out there is the feeling that any Indian MNOs with international ambitions will need to be mindful of quite different challenges they may face.
Writing last month for telecoms.com about the purchase of Zain's African opcos by Bharti Airtel, for example, Matthew Reed observes that "Bharti will be looking to reinvent Zain Africa by introducing the low-cost business model that it has pioneered successfully in India" and "will also be hoping to achieve economies of scale across its Asian and African operations, which together will make it the fifth-largest mobile operator in the world".
Reed does offer words of caution, however, arguing that "operating in Africa does present particular challenges, some of which will be new to Bharti, despite its credentials as an emerging-market operator."
"The takeover of Zain Africa", writes Reed, "will give Bharti operations in 15 different countries, each of which has its own political and regulatory conditions, and some of which present some political risk. The diversity alone will be something new for Bharti, which only had mobile operations in India until it made recent moves into Sri Lanka and Bangladesh."
Reed also observes that while tariffs in Africa have traditonally been rather higher than those Bharti Airtel has to live with on home soil, the giant Indian cellco is entering many African markets at a time when higher levels of competition have more recently been pushing down prices. "In much of sub-Saharan Africa", Reed adds, "the infrastructure is poor and distribution is difficult."
Maarten Pieters of Vodafone India, meanwhile, is almost uniquely well qualified to make predictions about how his company's major competitor is likely to fare as it embarks on its African adventure - between 2003 and 2005, he was the CEO of Celtel International, the collection of African operators acquired by Zain and subsequently sold on to Bharti Airtel. Pieters has also served on the board of Millicom International Cellular, the multinational mobile group whose African assets currently include opcos in Chad, DRC, Ghana, Mauritius, Rwanda, Senegal and Tanzania.
Pieters offers words of encouragement: "Bharti is a very fantastic company. I really admire them. They have done a very good job in India. They have a very good management. If anyone can make a success out of the old Celtel assets, then it’s them. So, I am very happy that they are in good hands."
While, as Pieters argues, consolidation of the Indian mobile operator space may be inevitable, the handset market, conversely, seems to be becoming more fragmented. Priyanka Joshi of the Business Standardwrites that "the segment has seen entry of one mobile vendor every month." For the year 2009, Joshi asserts, "new vendors registered a combined market share of 12.3% of the total 101.54 million mobile handset sales."
Examples of new market entrants offered by Joshi include Wynn Telecom. "Starting May this year, writes Joshi, "the company will launch seven dual SIM handsets priced under Rs 5000 and will also get ready to manufacture handsets in India."
Some new entrants, explains Joshi, will build a business around devices tailored to meet the needs of users in India's vast rural areas. Olive Telecommunications is one example of a company with this strategy.
It will be interesting to observe, then, whether the mobile services and mobile handsets markets do indeed move in these opposite directions - with the former consolidating down to a smaller number of operators of scale and the latter continuing to offer opportunities for innovative new entrants.
Back in January, I wrote about the Eurasia Com conference which the good folks at Informa Telecoms & Media host annually in Istanbul, taking place in either March or April. At the time, I thought it was unlikely that I would be able to attend. Happily, it did turn out to be possible after all, meaning that I am able to report some of what was discussed at the Conrad Hotel on 23rd and 24th March.
For those not familiar with the event or with the wider series of related conference-plus-exhibition events of which it is a part, a few words of explanation:
Informa's Com World Series evolved from what was once known as the GSM (and later GSM>3G) World Series of events. The GSM series was itself a spin-off of the GSM World Congress (now Mobile World Congress), of which Informa was the original founder.
The GSM World Series brought scaled-down versions of the main event to a selection of locations ranged around the world's emerging markets. In each location, the aim was to gather large numbers of decision-makers from the mobile operators of the region around the host city. These locations included cities in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe.
The Com World Series brand was introduced a few years ago to reflect a perceived need to offer meeting points for a broader community than just GSM mobile operators. The organisers were mindful of the idea that the previously quite sharp fixed-mobile distinction was becoming increasingly fuzzy around the world. They thought about what had once been pure play mobile operators offering other kinds of broadband service, either by building new networks (copper, fibre, fixed-wireless) or in partnership with established fixed-line operators. They thought about new mobility propositions from companies whose previous offerings had not been in the cellular space. They thought about incumbent fixed-line operators merging with previously quite separate mobile business units (think in terms of what Deutsche Telekom is doing all over the CEE region).
Throughout this evolution, Informa's series of events has stuck to a pretty successful business model, which is still in place today - operators (and other telecoms service providers) attend for free, with most of the revenue coming from any organisations with products and services to sell into the operator space. This includes the major network technology vendors and all manner of software companies, systems integrators, consultancies etc.
Eurasia Com is a relatively new part of the Com World Series, although this year's iteration was the fourth to take place in Istanbul, having been relocated from Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the event first took place in 2006.
The challenge which the organisers face - and which I feel they met pretty successfully this year - is bringing together a crowd from what are quite diverse markets. A large Turkish contingent (representing the likes of Turk Telekom, Vodafone Turkey, Turkcell, Avea and Koc.net) mixes with delegates from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and the Caucasus, making it necessary to arrange for everyone to gain from presentations in Turkish, Russian and English. If you attend next year, expect to spend some time wearing a headset which pipes the simultaneous interpretation right into your ears.
That, then, is a little about the event, its origins and how it works on the day. The challenge mentioned above (making the conference relevant for both Turkish delegates and for guests from the CIS) was dealt with this year by having elements of the second day billed specifically as a 'Turkey focus' session, thereby acknowledging that there probably do exist some differences between the concerns of the local audience of those of the visitors from the former Soviet republics where market conditions are quite different.
I am pleased to report that this worked well. As a veteran of more conferences than I care to remember, I have got used to seeing events looking busy on day one and feeling a lot less vibrant on the second day. At Eurasia Com 2010, delegate numbers were, I think, possibly even higher on 24th March than they had been on 23rd.
So, what was discussed during these two days of slideware, panel sessions and offline networking? Well, in the sessions I managed to catch, highlights included:
Informa analyst Gemma Bunting cautioning delegates to remain open minded about real mobile penetration rates across the CIS, noting that multi-SIM usage makes accurate measurement quite difficult and pointing out that in the supposedly saturated Russian market over 20 million subscriptions were added by operators last year.
Informa's Bunting noting that ARPU is declining sharply in some markets - Uzbekistan was given as an example - USD 9/month in 2007, dropping to USD 4/month by 2009.
Gemma Bunting wondering about the impact of Tele2's acquisition of a mobile operation in Kazakhstan and observing that the Swedish group is known for its aggressive pricing.
Ineke Botter, CEO of Azeri cellco Bakcell indicating the a mobile money offering from her company might not be iminent but was certainly "on the roadmap".
Mustafa Kiral of Russian telecoms investment group Altimo indicating that his company is in the market for opportunities to acquire majority stakes in telecoms operators in emerging markets - African markets were mentioned.
Altimo's Kiral sounding lukewarm at best when the conference Chairman asked if Altimo is considering investments in the wireline space.
Mehmet Hasanov of Aztelekom talking up the revenue potential of the wholesale business and wondering why telcos' marketing people are generally so inclined not to get excited about it.
A few snippets about the planned privatisation of Tajiktelecom.
I was not surprised, also, to learn more in offline conversations than I did from listening to presentations. The lesson here, for those few conference veterans who do not already know, is that it's important to get proactive at these gatherings - get among the delegates and speakers, working the room and maximising the opportunity to develop a good number of valuable contacts under one roof.
My guess is that 2009 was at least moderately challenging for conference organisers and that delegate numbers across the events industry may have been negatively affected by financial worries on the part of target audiences. My recent experience in Istanbul, however, just went to confirm that there continues to be no substitute for making face-to-face contact with potential new clients and partners and that events of this type can be a pretty good one-stop-shop for doing so. I would also particularly recommend this and other events in Informa's Com World Series for the way in which they gather crowds from given higher growth regions around the globe.
Kenyatta Int'l Conference Centre, Nairobi: venue for this year's East Africa Com
Last year I had the pleasure of visiting Nairobi, Kenya for the first time, building meetings around the excellent East Africa Com conference and exhibition.
This year, given that my day-to-day commercial activity now does not give me much exposure to Africa, I will not attending. Were I still more active in Africa, however, I would certainly want to be there - and I would encourage anyone who does business with the telecoms operators of the East Africa region to head for the Kenyatta International Conference Centre on 27th-28th April.
This year's event will be graced by the presence of the Hon. Samuel Poghisio, the host country's Minister for Information & Communications and by Charles J.K Njoroge, Director General of telecoms regulatory agency the CCK (Communications Commission of Kenya). I don't recall the Kenyan Government and authorities being represented at such a high level at the 2009 event, so the organisers are to be congratulated for the upgrade.
Sponsors and exhibitors will doubtless also be impressed by the number of operator CEOs to whom they will have access during the two days of discussions. Of these, two of the biggest hitters are Michael Ghossein, CEO of France Telecom-controlled Telkom Kenya, the country's incumbent fixed-line operator and Michael Joseph, the long-standing CEO of Kenya's dominant (78.8% market share, according to WCIS) mobile operator Safaricom.
This may be one of the final conferences appearances for the latter, Joseph having announced his impending retirement. He joined the Kenyan operator in mid-2000, when Vodafone first invested in the company. Since then, he has guided the company from a subscriber base of fewer than 20,000 to over 15 million today. Along the way, Safaricom has become renowned for its M-Pesa mobile money transfer service, which has brought the advantages of financial services to very large numbers of Kenya's largely 'unbanked' population. Safaricom also attracted praise this week from Alexander Grouet of Mira Networks, a leading provider of connectivity and billing tools between business and mobile networks in Africa.
Grouetasks: "Would you plan a trip to a foreign destination if you didn't know what the place looked like, what there was to see, how much a hotel room cost and what local transportation was available?" Having concluded that most readers would not, Grouet then invites us to imagine that what we’re talking about is not your vacation, but your business. "Well that’s pretty much what it’s like for most content providers wanting to penetrate the SSA [sub-Saharan Africa] market", he continues. "Despite the hype, the market metrics WASPs crucially need in order to make the next step, such as data ARPU or WAP traffic, are virtually inaccessible. Even traditional market data resellers don't offer it, as optimistically named Africa VAS reports almost exclusively include blended indicators rather than content-specific ones." I don't recall if this is a fair accusation to direct towards the good folks at the reports business of Informa Telecoms & Media, the organisers of East Africa Com.
Even if it is, Grouet suggests that the fault for the scarcity of these vital data lies with operators. "Out of the 26 operators in the 5 countries I worked on last year (Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire) only 2 to my knowledge," he writes, "publicly released their data ARPU." The two cellcos in Mr. Grouet's good books are Safaricom and Starcomms, a Nigerian CDMA carrier.
"The most likely explanation for this", ventures Grouet, "is that the data figures are still so low on most networks that operators simply don’t want to release them at this stage." According to Grouet, even Safaricom's data ARPU, including M-Pesa, stands at just USD 1 monthly, while the figure for Starcomms, including EV-DO dongles, is just under USD 2 per month. "But at least, we know where they stand, and we will be able to measure their progress when they next update those figures," Grouet continues.
Grouet hopes that other African operators will break their silence on the topic of data revenues, not least because that unwillingness to share data "only has the counter-productive effect of making it harder for international content companies, who precisely could help operators boost their data traffic, penetrate their markets."
Let's see how many cellco attending East Africa Com agree with these sentiments. Were I to attend this year, I would probably like to pursue that line of questioning, not least because I have received marketing emails from Informa which suggests that the region's operators are somewhat focused on data services.
A speaker likely to turn in an entertaining presentation is Noel Herrity, CEO of Tanzania's Zantel, an operator in which the UAE'sEtisalat owns a 51% stake. Mr. Herrity delivered a compelling, nicely paced talk at the 2009 iteration of the conference and delegates will be hoping for more of the same. Perhaps we can be optimistic about that - Herrity may be in buoyant mood in light of recent reports indicating that the operator has begun recording net customer additions again, following two quarters of net loss.
One speaker for whom it could be challenging to stay 'on message'? BasharArafeh, the COO of the East Africa Region for MEA mobile group Zain.
This might arise as a result of delegates' curiosity about the future of Zain's African operations. Subject to takeover speculation for many months now (see DTW articles passim.), these assets could well be the property of giant Indian cellcoBhartiAirtel before too long. The most recent developments in this long-running saga may soon prompt a revival of the popular mini-series (well, it generated more hits than usual) which appeared here on-and-off for much of 2009, rejoicing in the clunky title 'Zain Africa Speculation Watch' (and variations thereon).
Other CxOs appearing on stage at next months event include:
I'm sure this year's event will once again be a useful place to do business, gain market intelligence and enjoy the company of a crowd who always seem very open to networking and making new contacts.
Vodafone services: coming soon to a Socialist People's Arab Jamahiriya near you...
One African republic has been hitting the headlines recently, as the effects of a diplomatic row between that country and a European nation is now affecting citizens of many other states. This is a particularly thorny issue given that much European money has been poured into the construction and oil sectors of that North African nation. People carrying the passports of most major European economies are now prevented from travelling there. This must be causing great disruption to companies whose personnel usually need to spend time in the African state.
One giant global mobile business, however, seems to not to have been too seriously affected.
In July last year, DevelopingTelecomsWatch made some positive noises about the investment climate in Libya. While there was some head scratching about the attractiveness of the North African country's mobile market (mobile penetration was a hefty 141.58% at time of writing - it is 159.42% now, according to WCIS), it was noted that relations between the USA and the Colonel Gaddafi regime had improved to the point whereby foreign investors might not fall foul of restrictions set by the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control.
More recently, however, relations between Libya and some western countries have once again become rather strained, causing Tripoli to stop issuing visa to citizens of the twenty-five European countries of the Schengen passport-free zone. At the centre of this dispute is Switzerland, which, according to a Libyan newspaper report of February 14th, had denied entry visas to nearly 200 Libyans, including Gaddafi, members of his family and other senior officials. As a helpful Reuters timeline explains, this Swiss move came after wrangles that had continued since June 2008, when police in Geneva arrested Hannibal Gaddafi, one of the Libyan leader's sons. Gaddafi jr., along with his pregnant wife, were taken into custody following allegations about the mistreatment of two of their employees.
By February 26th of this year, both the European Union and the United Nations felt forced to respond to Col. Gaddafi's subsequent call for jihad against Switzerland, announced as the row has escalated and become yet more bitter. By March 1st, analysts were commenting that the row has exposed weaknesses in Swiss foreign policy and damanged the country's reputation as an impartial global mediator.
Citizens of countries in the Schengen zone, meanwhile, continue to be refused entry to Libya.
From his name, I would hazard a guess that Mr. Colin MacDougall is either an Irish or a British citizen. As such, he would be a national of a country that has chosen to opt out of Schengen's border control arrangements. This would explain his recent present in Tripoli, representing Vodafone, on whose behalf he formalised a Partner Markets agreement with state-owned Libyan mobile operator Al-Madar.
MacDougall seems to work for the Partner Markets unit of the giant cellco, which enables subscribers of operators in which Vodafone has no equity to enjoy exclusive access to a range of products, services and devices from the UK-headquartered group. Partner operators also gain from Vodafone's experience in supply chain management, the acquisition of enterprise customers and improved network inter-working. In turn, Vodafone customers can gain from improved roaming arrangements in countries where Vodafone does not otherwise have a presence.
Over the last few years, I have had the pleasure of meeting several people attached to Vodafone Partner Markets and know that they work pretty hard to maximise the value of the numerous relationships they manage worldwide. In light of the recent wrangles, and keeping in mind the eccentricities of the state which owns Vodafone's latest MNO partner, one wonders whether this will be an especially challenging relationship to maintain. However, given that oil-rich Libya is of vital economic significance and that the Vodafone teams who run these partnerships appear to be so adept at meeting tough challenges, I daresay this will prove advantageous to the shareholders and customers of the global mobile group.
Doing telco sector business in Turkey, the Caspian region or Central Asia? ......head for Eurasia Com at Istanbul's Conrad Hotel this March.
A belated Happy New Year to all loyal readers of (and occasional visitors to) DevelopingTelecomsWatch.
I daresay some of you will have found 2009 above-averagely challenging and are looking forward hopefully to a more prosperous and settled year ahead.
With this in mind, DTW will soon be evaluating some predictions about what 2010 may have in store for those of us with an interest in the telecoms sector in emerging markets and developing countries worldwide.
In the meantime, we will be using the announcement of the conference agenda for this year's Eurasia Com conference in Istanbul as the inspiration for a look around developments in Turkey, the Transcaucasus region and Central Asia. These are the markets from which the event gathers telecoms sector leaders for two days of discussions and networking.
My guess is that I will not be able to attend the conference - taking place at Istanbul's Conrad Hotel on 23-24 March - but I would definitely recommend it as a useful place to make new contacts and catch up with existing ones if you do business with the telecoms operators of that part of the world. I feel qualified to make this recommendation, having attended two iterations of the event, and having been involved in its development between 2006 and 2009.
This year's speaker panel includes a glittering array of telecoms leaders from both the host country and from numerous CIS markets. Those able to attend will have the opportunity gain a uniquely valuable opportunity to learn from these panellists - and some will doubtless advance their cases for doing business with the speakers' organisations.
While I daresay, however, that many of the presentations and public panel discussions will be somewhat insightful, my experience of attending many conferences has taught me that delegates can learn far more by being above-averagely proactive. This means being a real participant rather than a mere attendee. It means doing more than just scribbling/typing notes during the conference sessions. It means more than downloading the presentation slides.
So, if you make it to the Conrad Hotel in Istanbul, be sure to come prepared with the questions you particularly want answered. Then make the effort to direct those questions to relevant speakers, keeping in mind that however effectively the sessions are moderated, there will not be time for the Chair to deal with everyone who has something to ask. Should your most urgent questions not get dealt with, be sure to be one of those confident people seen springing from a front row seat to shake hands and exchange business cards with the hottest speakers the second the session breaks for strong Turkish coffee. Then might be the time you will finally make your point or extract the answers you're looking for. Or your possibly rather sensitive enquiry might best be handled over that coffee and a piece of sweet, flaky baklava. Failing that, the business card you've gained could be the key to setting up post-event conversations.
Question time: get the answers over coffee and Turkish treats at Eurasia Com
Does this all sounds like advice that's basic to the point of being a bit patronising? I hope not. It is, after all, offered as a result of having watched countless conference delegates fail to maximise the value of the investment their companies had made by paying for them to attend - even with the free tickets for which employees of telecoms operators and service providers are eligible at Eurasia Com and other Com World Series events, some costs are implied, be it plane tickets and hotel bills for out-of-town delegates, or just the cost of being away from the day job.
If you do decide to attend, and do attend on a mission to learn about developments in the region covered by the conference, what questions might you direct to the numerous worthies on the speaker panel?
Given that the CIS markets of Central Asia and the Transcaucasus region were among the first places that Russia's major telecoms players looked for international growth opportunities, you would hope that Eurasia Com is able to offer access to their top management. The event does not disappoint - gracing the stage for the opening Keynote Session will be Mustafa Kiral, Vice President of Altimo and Oleg Raspopov, who heads up the 'Foreign Subsidiaries' Business unit of giant Russian cellco MTS.
Any industry watchers with a strong interest in the latter company, might be tempted to try and squeeze in a question about the operator's hopes for its mobile broadband offering in Moscow, now that 3G services can finally be made available in the Russian capital. A full year after 3G services were offered in other parts of Russia, Muscovites learned last month that the country's military authorties were finally ready to cede control of the necessary spectrum and enable operators to switch on their W-CDMA base stations.
Given Mr Raspopov's responsibilities, however, and given the geographical coverage of the conference agenda, perhaps it might be more germane for delegates to ask the MTS man whether his company has any interest in further extending its CIS footprint. At present, MTS subsidiaries compete in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Armenia. Away from the immediate focus region for this conference, further MTS business units operate in Ukraine and Belarus.
Strikingly absent from the MTS sphere of influence are two of the region's potentially more attractive markets - MTS does not compete in either Kazakhstan or Azerbaijan.
In June last year, MTS CEO Mikhail Shamolintold Reuters that his company was looking at acquisition opportunities in both countries, having decided that the prospects for a start-up operation were not good in either market.
It now appears, however, that the opportunity to make an acquisition in Kazakhstan has now passed. That country's mobile arena is contested by four operators, with the market split as follows, as of end-December 2009, according to the WCIS service offered by the organisers of Eurasia Com, Informa Telecoms & Media:
The two leading mobile operators, then, are controlled by MTS's main rivals in the region and are therefore, surely, extremely unlikely targets for addition to Mr Raspopov's Foreign Subsidiaries Unit. Altel, too, as a rare example of a CDMA operator in the region, strikes me as a company one cannot easily imagine on the MTS shopping list.
Neo, a late entrant GSM operator which went to market in 2007, would be the logical choice for an MTS purchase. A majority stake in this cellco, however, is to be snapped up by Tele2, the Sweden-headquartered pan-European telecoms group. This transaction, as reported in December, involves Tele2 paying around USD 77 million for the 51% stake held by Kazakhstan's incumbent fixed line operator, Kazakhtelecom, which also owns 49% of KCell. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Tele2 has the option to buy the remaining 49% of Neo shares in five years' time from private investment group Asianet Holdings BV.
It will now be interesting to see how much Tele2 makes of the opportunity that MTS has declined to puruse in Kazakhstan. Interesting, too, to see how far the company's usual preference for competing aggressively on price will impact on the Kazakh market.
Speaking on a conference call, Tele2 said that Neo currently has lower prices and lower ARPU than its two larger rivals, so it remains to be seen whether tariffs can be cut further in order to gain market share. According to the WSJ article, a market share of 20% is what Tele2 has in mind.
Of further CIS markets likely to prove attractive to MTS, perhaps only Azerbaijan remain. A June 2009 article here at DTW noted that the Caucasus region country, although quite small with a population of just under 9 million, is oil-rich and relatively prosperous. It is notable, therefore, that of the three groups with footprints across the southernmost CIS markets, only the TeliaSonera-Turkcell joint venture Fintur Holdings has a presence - in the form of market-leading MNO Azercell, none of whose competitors are aligned with a significant multinational telecoms groups. Of these competitors, one will be represented at Eurasia Com by its CEO - Ineke Botter, who heads up Bakcell, is among the speakers. A cheeky question one might direct to Ms. Botter would be to ask whether she feels either her company or the third entrant, Nar Mobile, is a likely acquisition target for MTS or Vimpelcom, which similarly has no presence in Azerbaijan.
With Tele2 having seized the opportunity to move into the Kazakh market, conference delegates may be wondering what impact this may have on the country's telecoms landscape. Questions along these lines can be raised at Eurasia Com, the ideal time for this probably being a morning session on Tuesday 23rd March which deals specifically with the rapid maturation of the Kazakh telecoms market. Fielding the questions will be Kuanysbek Bahytbekovich Yesekeev, Chairman of that Kazakhstan Agency of Information Technologies and Telecommunication, and Maxut Sauranbekov, President of CDMA operator Altel.
A new feature of the conference this year is a day two session focussing specifically on the Turkish market. A very strong line-up of speakers will be on hand to debate the key issues. These include:
Erkan Akdemir, CEO of Avea, the mobile operator in which incumbent wireline telco Turk Telekom holds a controlling interest
Mehmet Toros, Turk Telekom's VP International and Wholesale
Tayfun Cataltepe, the Chief Corporate Strategy & Regulations Officer of market-leading MNO Turkcell
This year's event looks set to be even more useful than previous iterations and I look forward to feedback from colleagues and contacts who are able to attend.
Naguib Sawiris: planning to shake up Canada's wireless market
DTW’s recent article on international ambitions of India’s two major state-owned telecoms operators mentioned that one opportunity they are considering is the acquisition of a controlling stake in Zamtel, the incumbent fixed-line operator in Zambia. It remains to be seen if this joint bid from BSNL and MTNL will succeed and it does look as though some formidable players are also interested.
According to a recent Cellular News article, other interested parties include Telecel Globe (a subsidiary of Orascom Telecom), Telkom (South Africa’s incumbent fixed-line operator) and Russia’s increasingly expansionist Vimpelcom, all of which, the article states, officially began due diligence this week.
Interest in Zamtel is by no means the biggest recent news item about Orascom Telecom and might well have escaped the notice of North American readers whose attention has probably been drawn more readily to the challenges the Egyptian firm is facing in Canada. Globalive Communications Corp. of Toronto was established in 1998, since which time it has offered competitive long distance plans. Ten years later, the company successfully made a purchase in Industry Canada's radio spectum auction, which paved the way for the creation of a challenger - Globalive Wireless - for the country's established mobile operators, including Telus Mobility, Rogers Wireless and Bell Mobility. The joint efforts of these three major carriers and regional players such as SaskTel have failed to drive national mobile penetration beyond 66.65% according to WCIS. This seems very low for a G8 country that ranks among the world's top ten trading nations. In an interview for Huawei's Communicate magazine earlier this year, Bell Mobility CTO Stephen Howe attributed this state of affairs to three factors: the relatively late licensing of digital wireless spectrum in Canada; Canada' s huge geographical area; the country's robust and unlimited-usage wireline networks.
Globalive Wireless, backed by Orascom Telecom and which had earlier this year announced its intention to launch services under the Wind brand familiar in Italy and Greece, has been led by CEO Ken Cambpell since October 2008. Cambell, whose former roles include a stint running the BITĖ Group, the Vodafone partner network in Lithuania and Latvia, would take issue with Stephen Howe's explanation for Canada's status as a wireless industry laggard. Speaking with Michael Bettiol of Boy Genius Report last month, Campbell lays the blame squarely with the country's wireless carriers:
"Here we’ve got a situation where we pay twice as much as they do in the US, our minutes of use are half of what they are in the US, and wireless penetration is at 65%. Clearly it is a market that is under-developed and where customers simply overpay. The other thing is that in Canada our customer saturation numbers are extremely low. We’ve got a very disenfranchised and very frustrated customer base that is really ripe and in need of competition. The other thing you should know is that this country is dominated by three carriers, but if you look regionally, it is typically two carriers that dominate regional markets. Canada is effectively an oligopoly and in many regions pretty much a duopoly. There is definitely an opportunity with consumers and the numbers speak for themselves."
If, as Michael Bettiol contests, Canadians have "long craved for a new wireless carrier to bust onto the scene and break up what is often described as the anti-competitive practices of [the] incumbents", there must surely be much excitement in the country about the market debut of Wind.
For now, however, any excitement must be deferred a while. Globalive Communications has been in a state of limbo since late last month, when the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ruled that the company is effectively under the control of its Egyptian-based financial backer (Orascom Telecom) and is therefore in breach of rules on foreign ownership and control.
Terence Corcoran of the National Postdespairs of the resulting "wireless mess":
"Globalive Wireless has just pumped more than half a billion dollars into the Canadian economy. That includes paying Ottawa $442-million last year for the right to new wireless spectrum, cash now already spent by the federal government stimulating road work in Saskatchewan and writing giant cheques to constituents in Nova Scotia," writes Corcoran, who also notes that "Globalive has also invested another hundred million or more preparing a new Canadian wireless network".
"Having taken Globalive's money", Corcoran continues, "Canada is now telling the company the deal is off."
Corcoran argues that the large spectrum auction fees collected by the Canadian Government would have been far more modest had the participation of Orascom Telecom supremo Naguib Sawiris not been authorised in the first place. Corcoran says that Sawiris has every right to feel mightily aggrieved:
"Whether or not it's possible to sue Ottawa over this thirdworldish policy switch and bureaucratic camel-trading, complete with secret meetings and rule-bending approval processes, it certainly looks like Globalive and its owner, Mr. Sawiris, have a case of some kind, politically and morally, if not legally. Ottawa led Globalive into bidding for spectrum and a major role in the Canadian wireless market, and then it pulled the carpet out from under the company.
This wrangle is a fascinating one for me. In the course of my work, I have spent considerable time networking with telecoms executives from Europe, North America and the Middle East who make their living running operations in less developed countries. I have lost count of the number of times I've heard (doubtless justified) complaints about the complexities and pitfalls of doing business in such markets - regulatory agencies that can be erratic and less than even-handed; taxation policies which stifle growth and innovation; foreign ownership rules which can prove limiting. It is with interest, then, that I read of a company rooted in Egypt encountering in Canada some of the problems I usually hear attributed to much less affluent and developed societies.
DevelopingTelecomsWatch has followed, with some interest, suggestions that India's two major state sector telecoms operators - BSNL and MTNL - might be aiming to become international players.
In September, this blog went on a meandering tour of emerging markets M&A rumours, during which it was mentioned that BSNL's bid for Millicom International Cellular's Sri Lankan MNO had been unsuccessful. Tigo Sri Lanka, as reported more recently here, was eventually acquired by Etisalat of the UAE, in a move which prompted some analysts to express fear for the profitability of the island nation's other mobile operators. These commentators have noted that Etisalat tends to compete fiercely on price when coming late to a cellular market.
In the same September M&A tour, DTW also quoted industry watchers who were warning both BSNL and MTNL to steer clear of reported attempts to acquire a stake in Kuwaiti-owned pan-MEA mobile group Zain. A Mint article by Shauvik Ghosh was referenced, in which an anonymous analyst said that BSNL would be advised not to purchase a stake in Zain. "BSNL has a lot of cash on its books but it lacks the ability to execute," said the mystery man. Not shy of the odd split infinitive, the unknown analyst said "Africa is not a market for an operator to just add some revenue to its balance sheet. They have to first show that they can execute in India with the opportunities already in front of them like broadband and 3G before they can venture into bigger game like Zain." A previous DTW article discussed at some length the view that the two public sector telcos have perhaps not yet demonstrated that ability to "execute in India" to anything like a satisfactory degree.
There is evidence, though, from as recently as mid-October, that BSNL and MTNL have not been deterred by such criticism and that the two companies continues to investigate both the Zain opportunity and other potential foreign adventures. Writing on 15th October, Mansi Taneja of the Business Standard reports that a consortium led by Delhi-based Vavasi Group is in discussions with both BSNL MTNL for a majority stake in a special purpose vehicle that is being formed for a bid for Zain.
Taneja quotes "a top source close to the consortium" who has said: "Our talks with BSNL and MTNL are on track, but we don’t have any exclusivity contract with them. We are also holding informal discussions with other telecom companies, including China Mobile, in case talks with BSNL and MTNL do not fructify."
(note to self: attempt to use the word 'fructify' in conversation this week)
Is it unfair on the two Indian operators to venture the suggestion that the giant Chinese cellco might be a far more powerful player to have involved in an audacious bid to acquire operations and subscribers across Africa and the Middle East? Way back in 2002, the Chinese operator stole Vodafone's crown as the world's leading mobile operator in terms of subscriber numbers. Vodafone was subsequently seen to stake out its credentials as the world's largest cellco by revenues. Finally, in September this year, this accolade was also swiped by China Mobile.
If the Vavasi Group does turn out to be more impressed by the credential of the world's most gigantically-huge-mobile-operator-by-every-measurement-ever than by what BSNL and MTNL can bring to a bid for Zain, where else might the two Indian operators look for overseas growth opportunities?
One possibility, again aired by the indispensable Business Standard, is a much more modest foray into Africa, namely the acquisition of a majority stake in Zamtel, the state-owned incumbent telco of Zambia, which competes in the mobile space and is the monopoly fixed-line operator. On 15th September, the Government of the landlocked southern African country announced its intention to part-privatise the telco through the sale of up to 75% of the company’s equity. Industry watchers Buddecomm, in their Zambia profile, describe the country's wireline infrastructure as "at a very low level of development, which in turn has impeded growth in the Internet sector." Zamtel's monopoly in this space is set to be threatened, continues the Buddecomm profile, which notes that "the country’s ISPs are rolling out wireless broadband networks, which will also position them as competitors in the telecoms sector once VoIP is fully liberalised", something which is meant to be "a key component in Zambia's new ICT Policy."
The Zambia Development Agency (ZDA) makes a more upbeat assessment of the Zamtel fixed network, claiming that it connects all major population centres and is undergoing a substantial upgrade, with over 80% of switching infrastructure now digital, and DSL capacity being rolled out. The ZDA claims that Zamtel’s primary fixed-wireless network is also being upgraded and expanded, with coverage and capacity expected to more than double within the next twelve months. Zamtel’s secondary fixed-wireless network, based on WIMAX technology, is designed to cover the whole of metropolitan Lusaka, and is scheduled to go live during 2010, says the ZDA.
In the mobile space, Zamtel lags a long way behind its competitors in terms of market share. The stats, estimated for September 2009 by WCIS look like this:
Zamtel, then, is struggling to compete effectively against two of Africa's leading mobile groups. There is, however, room for all competitors to grow, with Zambia's mobile penetration rate currently standing at just under 33% according to WCIS. Whether BSNL and MTNL are ideally suited to improving the fortunes of the company, however, could be questioned in light of some of the criticisms aired here about their performance in their home market of India. According to the Business Standard, the two public sector telcos are joined by seven other companies or consortia from in having successfully prequalified to participate in a bid for Zamtel.
Should both the relatively modest aspiration of buying control of Zambia's incumbent operator and the rather more grand designs on Zain both come to nought, MTNL and BSNL do appear to have ambitions to establish a presence in other regions.
Again, I am indebted to India's Business Standard for an update. According to an article of October 23rd, the two operators, along with the Vavasi Group, are planning to set up new operations in Russian and western Europe.
Under this deal, the article states, Vavasi "is acquiring frequency spectrum and licences for Russia and several western European countries" and "the same [special purpose vehicle] that is being formed to acquire a majority stake in Zain will be used to invest in the Russian operations."
Confirming the development, a senior Vavasi executive is quoted as having said: "We are in the process of acquiring a licence for the new generation (NG)-1 technology and have applied in Russia and four other European countries."
This is where I betray the fact that I am not an engineer by wondering about this "NG-1 technology". What is it? The Business Standard article claims that "NG-1 technology is an alternative to GSM and CDMA and was developed in the US universities" and that "Vavasi claims that the network needs lower capital expenditure as well as operating expenses."
I'll hold my hands up. This is a new one on me.
An inspection of the Vavasi website reveals that NG-1 is a proprietary wireless access technology the company has developed itself and which it claims "understands the need of both rural and urban areas". Impressive sounding claims are also made for the spectrum efficiency and eco-friendly credentials of the technology.
NG-1 sounds wonderful - but can proprietary kit from India really prevail against global standards such as WiMAX, HSPA and LTE?
Some grand claims, then, are being made about the ambitions of India's two major state sector telecoms companies. Some of these claims seem to be articulated rather more loudly by the Vavasi Group than by the telcos themselves. I wonder how much there is in all of this. Can two operators that have attracted much criticism in their home market really be set to emerge as global players?
A number of articles here have wrestled with the question of optimum pricing for mobile operators in emerging markets. Some of these have focused on the case of Millicom International Cellular selling its three Asian operations, having cited, in the case of Cambodia, the challenges of maintaining healthy profitability in the face of the highly aggressive market entry strategies of new entrants.
This week a price war fought amongst telcos elsewhere in Asia has cause a slide in the value of their stocks: The lady speaking in this clip contends that the first shots in this Indian tariff war were fired by Aircel (India's seventh largest cellco by market share) and TataDoCoMo, the recently-launched GSM proposition from CDMA operator TataTeleservices, arising out of its strategic alliance with Japanese mobile giant NTTDoCoMo.
In August, TataDoCoMo made waves by becoming the first Indian mobile brand to offer per-second billing. Some media sources contend that impressive subscriber additions for the operator since then have been largely driven by the attractiveness of this innovation. Surya R Kannoth of the Economic Times, writing today, says that the most aggressive response to this yet has been from Reliance Communications, which on Monday announced a flat, cheap per-minute lifetime tariff for all calls - local, NLD, on-net, offnet, inbound/outbound roaming - made by both CDMA and GSM prepaid users. All this comes for no monthly fixed charge, but with a one-time set up fee of Rs48 (around one US Dollar).
The commentator speaking in the video clip above argues that this tariff causes the spread between cost per minute and revenue per minute to become very narrow, "and that would hurt profitability going forward." She goes on to quote analysts who say that the tariff is "disruptive" and will put pressure on major players such as Vodafone, Idea Cellular and BhartiAirtel, whose Chairman said today that prices in India have hit rock bottom. In light of the damage to share prices seen this week, investors in the various mobile operators will doubtless be hoping that this really is the case.
BhartiAirtel is getting consecutive mentions at DTW, having been the subject of the most recent article here, which was about how India's market-leading cellco has been disappointed by a second failed attempt to create a merger with the Africa and Middle East cellular powerhouse MTN of South Africa. In that article I mentioned, not for the first time, that there exists the belief that competitive pressures in its home market will continue to make the exploration of foreign investment opportunities very compelling for BhartiAirtel. I take today's news of a price war and tumbling telecoms stocks to be a pretty solid plank for that argument. I also reported the opinion that the Indian cellco might want to take a good look into acquiring some or all of the assets of Zain, the availability of which has been talked up for months now, not least here at DTW, where we ran a whole series of articles on speculation around the Kuwaiti group's possible exit from Africa.
A Business Standard article run on Saturday contends that not only is this a likely scenario, but that the Indian operator may need to take on its one-time suitor in a battle to take control of Zain. This idea seems to be drawn from the fact that last month, MTN CEO PhutumaNhleko told journalists that his company would consider buying the African assets of Zain if the deal with BhartiAirtel did not go through.
If you were asked to reach for an example of mobile financial services gaining traction really impressively, perhaps you would think immediately of the M-Pesa service offered by the Kenyan cellco Safaricom, in which Vodafone owns a minority stake.
I daresay most readers are somewhat familiar with the service. For those who are not, Safaricom's TV advertisement provides a concise demonstration of the simplicity and utility of M-Pesa:
Since its launch in 2007, M-Pesa has attracted widespread praise. In February 2008, the 'send money home'-themed marketing campaign, of which this ad was a component, scooped the 'Best Broadcast Commercial' gong at the annual Global Mobile Awards ceremony hosted by the GSM Association. This year, 'Best Mobile Money Service' was introduced as a new award category at the same ceremony - Safaricom and Vodafone were joint winners. More recently, M-Pesa has been feted by UN-HABITAT, the United Nations agency for human settlements whose mission is to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. In June, the agency announced the first Habitat Business Awards for best practice in categories including affordable housing, clean urban energy solutions and innovative ITC solutions. In the latter category, Safaricom made the winning submission for M-Pesa, which the jury felt boosts urban entrepreneurship and clearly demonstrates the impact of innovative IT solutions for sustainable urbanisation.
In its submission to the judges, Safaricom mentions Kenya's large 'unbanked' population - people, largely from the urban poor, to whom opening a bank accounts is off limits. The submission document explains that such people face challenges around the safety of carrying cash (mugging and carjacking are cited as dangers they face) and the high cost of transferring monies to relatives in rural areas via existing channels.
The benefits for the consumer, then, are quite clear - but what does a mobile operator such as Safaricom gain from entering the mobile money space? Dawn Marshallsay of mobileSQUARED, writing in January, emphasised how mobile financial services drive up cellphone usage. She also quotes Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph, who told delegates at a London conference that "banking is a value-added service for mobile, not a money-making product"
"The main purpose of mobile banking is getting the customer to have an emotional attachment with the operator as they entrust their monetary details with the operator. Customers then start using their phones more in general," Joseph continued.
Where one operator in a developing country achieves differentiation as the only provider of such services, benefits for that operator, then, would presumably include achieving a high degree of customer stickiness in a market where the vast majority of mobile users are highly price sensitive (due to their relative poverty vs. their counterparts in developed countries) and where prepaid plans are dominant.
This model, in which consumers are locked into a specific mobile operator's set of financial services, is open to challenge, however. Earlier this month, Richard Wray of the UK's Guardian newspaper wrote about a recently-announced deal between mobile banking firm Monitise and Paynet, a company which operates ATMs and electronic payment services across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in partnership with thirty-five banks. Wray writes that the deal "will bring financial services to millions of people in Africa for the first time". The suite of services will include checking balances, moving money between accounts, and enabling customers to fill a mobile-wallet with cash to pay bills or send money to relatives.
A pretty close resemblance to M-Pesa and other mobile operator-run services, then. The crucial difference emphasised by Wray, though, is that while operator-branded services demand that users are customers of a particular MNO or are connected with a specific bank, the Monitise system is open to any financial institution and any mobile phone network that wants to plug into it. If I have understood this correctly, it seems, then, that M-Pesa and rival services such as Zain Kenya's Zap are to be challenged by an operator-neutral alternative. Monitise CEO Andrew Lukies believes that "mobile money is most effective as an 'open ecosystem' where you can transact with anybody or any organisation, regardless of your bank or mobile operator. Another differentiator, according to the Monitise Group's press release on this deal, is that "uniquely among mobile banking services, [it] enables people without a bank account to use its services, as well as providing traditional mobile banking to those with accounts."
Assuming any such threat can be withstood, services like M-Pesa - improving the lives of the unbanked while providing cellcos with a customer retention tool - seem to be good for consumers, good for society and good for the operator.
None of this is to suggest that M-Pesa and services like it are never subject to criticism or concerns around their reliability and security.
Earlier this month, writes Victor Juma of Kenya's Business Daily, a technical hitch in the M-Pesa service caused anxious customers to crowd at outlets to have their accounts updated. For several days, it seems, users were unsure of whether some transactions had been properly credited to their accounts.
The service also appears to have been targeted by organised criminals depositing counterfeit currency via M-Pesa agents. Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper reported on 4th August that staff in two bureaus in the towns of Kutus and Kianyaga had received fake money worth Sh29,000 (about USD 380). Accounts used by the fraudsters were topped up without agents spotting the counterfeit cash. I assume that fraudulent deposits of this kind can be stopped once noticed, but this incident demonstrates that no system is completely immune from human error. Having visited Kenya, but never having stepped inside a retail bank there, I have no idea whether counter staff in banks there are more highly trained than M-Pesa agents and therefore less prone to making mistakes of this kind. Whatever the case, my feeling is that if mobile operators in developing countries are to capitalise on consumers' lack of access to traditional financial services and institutions, the authorities in those countries would be justified in insisting that the cellcos' services are subject to many of the same regulations imposed on the banking sector. I daresay, however, that incidents like the two mentioned here are relatively rare, so none of these observations are meant as a very serious criticism of mobile financial services in developing countries.
Kenya - and more specifically Safaricom's M-Pesa - stands out as a mobile money success story. How far is it an exceptional story? Can we expect services of this type to face greater obstacles to consumer acceptance and commercial success in other developing countries?
Sarah Rotman of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) could presumably take a view on this, having written in July about the question of whether the success of mobile banking in Kenya can be replicated in neighbouring Tanzania. Rotman notes that unlike the rapid service uptake and quick development of an agent network in Kenya, things have moved much slower for Vodacom’s M-Pesa product in Tanzania. Explanations offered are as follows:
Geography/demographics: Tanzania is a less densely populated country than Kenya, which is important in light of the idea that the density of an agent network is a key factor in the success of any mobile financial services suite.
Market and competition: Safaricom in Kenya dominates its market (77.59% market share as of June 2009, according to WCIS), holding its own very well against established competitors and new entrants. Vodacom in Tanzania has just a 35.28% market share (according to WCIS) and is losing ground to the local operation of the Zain group and Millicom International Cellular's Tigo-branded operator.
Control over agent networks: according to Rotman, it appears that Vodacom Tanzania has less direct control of and influence on its airtime distribution channel than Safaricom. Also, Vodacom works directly with just six airtime wholesalers, compared with 300 for Safaricom. Safaricom’s airtime distribution network was a key element in the rapid development of the M-Pesa agent network.
Marketing and strategy: Initial Vodacom M-Pesa marketing seems not to have communicated the easily understood 'send money home' message we say in the Safaricom advertisement. As a result, writes Rotman, customers were unsure of what the product offered them and if it was really geared at the average Tanzanian.
While there are plenty of reasons to be bullish about the success prospects of mobile money services offered by cellcos to unbanked people in developing countries, then, it seems this enthusiasm should perhaps be tempered by an awareness of possible competitive threats from operator-neutral solutions and an understanding that a one-size-fits-all approach might not work effectively across a multi-country footprint.
the blogging alter-ego of a globe-trotting Englishman with a professional interest in the telecoms sector in emerging markets and developing countries worldwide.
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