Haitian mobile operator Comcel is focusing on profitability rather than market share as it jousts for pole position with Irish-owned Digicel in this incipient mobile market, Comcel's IT director Damaz Alexis told BNamericas.
Speaking on the sidelines of the CariCam Mobile conference in Puerto Rico this week, Alexis said it is important to take a pragmatic approach to building up a mobile business in such a high-risk country - the poorest in the western hemisphere and fraught with political instability and violence.
"We don't want to get into the market share battle but rather look for a balance between market share and profitability," Alexis said.
That is not to say the company does not aspire to being the leading operator in the country, but the priority is to generate customer loyalty and build up profitability, the executive said.
Currently many mobile customers in Haiti tend to hold phones of three operators - the third being Haitel - because phones are offered at very low prices and the customer has traditionally been wary of service failures. People therefore want one or two other phones for backup.
To boost loyalty, Comcel is promising customers that the longer they stay with the company the more rates will fall. Other commercial methods include facilitating credit top-ups over the phone and cash back programs, where subscribers build up points for new calls.
Battle for the Provinces
Haitel and Comcel - which operates under the Voila brand - have been operational in Haiti for eight and seven years, respectively, and have seen limited success. But it was the launch of Digicel in May 2006 and the phenomenal growth rates it saw in the first year, which really showed Comcel what could be achieved, Alexis said.
Digicel Haiti registered 1.4mn customers in 12 months and by July had invested US$260mn, the largest investment ever made in the country by an international company, according to Digicel.
With the right business model, building up mobile penetration is not hard given that fixed line teledensity still hovers around 2-3%.
Of a population of 8mn, mobile subscribers have in a short time leapt to around 3mn, with Comcel accounting for around 35% of that.
The challenge now is to target the provinces and rural areas, not capital Port-au-Prince, which currently accounts for 60-70% of mobile subscribers, Alexis said.
"The growth opportunities are there and Digicel is already trying to target the rural areas," Alexis said.
3G must wait
Comcel started operations with a TDMA network and migrated to GSM in 2005, and Digicel's operations have been GPRS from the start. Comcel's next step is to move to GPRS to be able to offer some data services, though this is not an immediate priority.
Internet services in Haiti are still prohibitively expensive for most, often offered over satellite networks. Demand for internet is growing but it is too early to talk about offering next generation networks because the return on investment would be very slow.
The first step is to target low-end customers, generate loyalty and then look to the next stage, Alexis said.
Posted to the site on 8th November 2007
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/27264.php