Highlights from the Telecel re-branding press conference

Today we attended, the Telecel launch of its new brand. We list below the highlights of the speeches made by both John Swaim (new MD) and the marketing director, Obert Mandimika.

• All Telecel Africa now have red and white colors
• The emphasis of the new brand is simplicity, innovation and value for money
• The budget for the rebranding exercise is a little over US $3 million.
• Why Telecel has failed to match competition in terms of network expansion has been the lack of resources to capitalize. This year the company expects to use about $70 million to fund network expansion and expects to set up 300 new sites. Telecel expects that being part of VimpelCom will help with efficiency in logistics.
• Telecel expect to grow subscriber base by about 60% by the year end.
• On Telecel’s never-ending boardroom disputes Swaim (new MD) said: “ Like all families we have our squabbles and we keep it in the family. The relationship between the two shareholders that is Telecel International and Empowerment Corporation is strong. We will be addressing the issues with the appropriate urgency between the shareholders and the government and I’m quite confident we’re going to resolve it shortly.
• The order of revenue contribution from services is now Voice, Data and then SMS. SMS revenues continue to decline.
• Swaim: SMS is good business for us, but frankly it’s not something I spend a lot of time thinking about it… I spend my time thinking about 3G services; Internet based services and what the people can do with mobile internet. That’s the future.”
• 3G coverage is about 50% of the network and the rest is GPRS however, those on GPRS are getting quite good service. Telecel also has some grey holes (pockets that don’t have data coverage) even within the 3G areas and these will be covered this year.