Interview with Abdul Ghani Ramadan, CEO of GreenN (Green Network Côte d'Ivoire)

Let’s do an assessment of the telecom sector in Côte d’Ivoire. What is your vision? How do you assess it? What are the latest trends?

I think the telecommunication sector in Côte d'Ivoire is very important, because it enhances the value of the country. I think the turnover is about 750 billions francs CFA in 2013 and the investment is about 116 billions francs CFA this year. There were 19.5 millions subscribers for various services such as voice, internet and also banking, which is mobile money. So, the telecommunication sector in Côte d'Ivoire is a great contributor in the GDP and we will provide good functional services. Previously it was just voice, now people transfer money, they use the internet and obtain information and so on. So, it is very important.

How do you assess the future trends? What is going to happen in the market in the near future with regard to new releases, etc.? In which direction are things moving in at the moment?

I think this market is moving towards data and mobile banking. I believe that roughly 45% of the revenue is coming from internet and mobile banking and that the 3G license is very important. As you know, the government has 4 licences in 3G license. They have already given three licenses, there is one remaining. So, hopefully we will be getting this license soon, because it is very important for us. This is the trend of the telecommunication sector now – internet, data and mobile banking services.

Let’s look at you as an example. You are ranked number 4 in the country. What is the major advantage that GreenN provides? What does the company stand for here? What’s its philosophy?

GreenN wants to give better services and accessibility to the customers. We launched our network at the end of 2008 and we gave very good incentives to our customers. We provided them mobiles at very low prices. It was for 2500 Francs. Back then it was hard to get this mobile and we gave them a lot of free minutes. The customers were very happy. Many customers were not accustomed to using mobiles. They came to us and joined hands with us and this is one of our success stories. Within six months after launch, we recorded about 850,000 active subscribers. Our objective is to focus on our clients.

Sometimes we do feel that because of the importance given to high-value customers, globally the market is not providing the best value for basic services. Considering the fact that we do not yet have a 3G license, the success we achieved this year of coming in number 4 is tremendous. We focus on providing the best value for voice and basic data - SMS. There is not much response to that, because at the end of the day the game is somewhere else. For the leaders like MTN and Orange, the fight is over high-value subscribers. If you look at the country, the penetration is still around 80%. Many people do not have access to the phone and have very limited opportunities to make a simple phone call. There is a big opportunity to ride the market. The market should be handled differently by offering best value for money and by offering best services. This is where you need to focus and not on just making the customers happy, but really trying to focus on the customers’ need. There is a big space for us.

At the moment, as you still don’t have 3G, you focus on voice and SMS. So of course, you can reach a large part of the population, who doesn’t have access to or doesn’t have the means of using the data. At the end of it, what is your market share in voice and SMS, which is your core activity?

Our market share is not so good, but now from the 5th position we have moved up to the 4th position. We have improved our subscriber base this year. Now we have more than 900,000 active subscribers.

What is your priority at the moment?

The most important priority is to increase our network population coverage over the country. We have good coverage within Abidjan and within other big Ivoirian cities like Yamoussoukro, Bouaké, Daloa, San-Pedro, Korogho, Man, Gagnoa, etc., but we would like to do our best to get coverage everywhere. Also, we want to acquire the 3G license and to provide better services to the customers by providing a lot of services like mobile money; bundle data offers, etc.

Could you mention some of the interesting services that you propose to provide?

It is part of our 2015 road map and this is confidential. But surely we are working towards mobile money. It’s coming very soon and planned to be launched differently than what the market has already seen.

Can you describe that briefly? What do you want to achieve through that – everybody can access their account?

Basically mobile money is a service which allow subscribers to transfer money and buy goods using their mobile phones. They will not need to go to the bank to make transfers.

Clearly today, we have limited capability because we do not have 3G. 3G will be introduced soon. We are mostly focussing on our capability, which will be expanding our area of coverage. Mobile money is the key product we are going to bring in. We are going to introduce mobile money. Something that we have seen globally is that, when you have some big players in mobile money, simply depending on a generalised strategy won’t work. Ericsson is a good example; Orange and Apple have been investing so much money to beat their competitors, but we cannot fight them. In Uganda and here so much money has been invested to fight the competition. It is very difficult to adapt. Their reach is amazing. We aim to singlehandedly provide all services provided by them. For this kind of approach, we plan to team with all the operators in the field. We need to introduce all of this with more flexibility, which may be not profitable initially, but at the end of the day we will have achieved our objective. It is a very good service comprising of basic services available everywhere else, nationally and internationally. From this subscriber perspective, we will then be meeting all their expectations.

But it is a good service for the customer. Our most important contribution is that we have stabilised the company after the crisis. We have increased our subscriber base by threefold. We are moving in the right direction now. Our next move would be to invest more to have more coverage and to try and get the 3G license.

What are the main challenges that you are facing currently? Are you trying to partner with some companies? When you launch any new product, like mobile banking for instance, you need to partner with banks. Similarly, what are the other things you have to do?

The main challenge for us is the crisis in Libya. To be honest with you, our company is affected. We had our strategies and action plan in place, our plans were ready to invest in this country, but unfortunately, we have not yet received funds because of this crisis. We got some funds to clear our current debts. We have cleared 80% of our debts. We have stabilised the company, but now the main challenge is to have funds for further investment.

The funds have to come from other companies or can it come from other sources?

This is actually very interesting. You know that the shareholder has enough money to support us. They don’t need anybody else to invest. But the problem is around Libya's political difficulties because as you know there is a lot of confusion out there. You can get validation from third party to get money from the shareholder, because the shareholder has the money. But they need validation from the government. This is the issue. It is very complicated. This is where we are.

Maybe it is a matter of time?

Yes, it is just a matter of time. But thanks to God and also GreenN employees we were not inactive so far. We did our best; we stabilised things and we were constantly reinventing ourselves. We didn’t have a setback because of this. It has affected us but future will be bright.

What would it mean to get the 3G license? What would be the major benefits for your clients, if you acquire this license?

The major benefit would be coverage throughout the country. We want to give more valuable services to the subscribers.

In terms of clients, do you divide them into categories? You have normal subscribers, but you also have companies for the corporate. What is your strategy to enhance this segment?

The corporate customer is interested in specific services. This market is not inclined to buy cheap service. It focuses on high value. So the approach that we would be taking is to give them the basic offers, but at prices that the competition cannot beat. This is working. Clearly, the coverage issue is sometimes a problem, but we are focussing on the main issue of getting better customers and organising them properly and providing them with good service. Of course, they are looking for offers like data for example. We can offer them similar services provided by other service providers like MTN or Orange. We can also offer classic services with internet and so on. Globally, we can think of other solutions such as partnership with other service providers.

If things get back on track and the situation gets better, where do you want to see your company in three years’ time? What do you want to do besides your Côte d'Ivoire operations?

The new management at Green did a lot of things to stabilise the company. In the beginning of this year, the TFT finance company called us the best company to have reduced the charges tremendously. We took a lot of steps to reduce charges on our operations. During the crisis it was hard for us to imagine that this company could survive, but thanks to God we are back.

Is there anything else you would like to add?

We are here not because of our ambition, but because of our financial capability. Our plan is to really have this resolved and now we have the means to do that. Our plan is to be a full-fledged operator to acquire data capability and maybe we can directly jump to LTE or universal license, instead of 3G. We want to become a real player in Côte d'Ivoire with focus on best value for money for the customer. We are really aiming at increasing our subscriber base by three or four folds. The strategy of two leading companies is fine with us. Actually, it is perfect. We can keep on focussing on improving the prices for voice and internet. I believe the market can handle this. There is a place for everybody. Maybe not five or six operators, maybe there will be a fusion. Maybe the government will discuss that with us. We are open to discuss about that.

We are interested in participating. We have discussed this with the other operators. We have discussed about consolidating forces and working as one company. In Uganda and South Sudan, we tried to consolidate with others, but unfortunately, it didn’t work out. We are interested in this idea. We will somehow work it out. Even here, if there is an opportunity to do it, we will do it.

The problem that we have with the mission here is with the frequency. Our license is only for 1800 MHz. With this, it is very difficult to compete with others. All other operators have 18 plus 900, except us, which is not fair. This lack of 900MHz creates problems to us. We have been trying for some time to get a bandwidth of 900MHz, but we have not been successful. Hopefully, the regulator will look into this point and will decide to gives us what is due. This kind of allows for fair competition.

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