New Tigo Ghana GM takes off on positive note

Tigo Ghana GM, Adil El Youssefi

The new General Manager of Tigo Ghana, Adil El Youssefi took his post in June this year, the same month Tigo reversed eight months of consistent market share and subscriber base decline.

Mr. Youssefi may not have been around early enough to contribute directly to the turnaround, but he said to Adom News Editor Nii Narku Dowuona, in his maiden interview since coming to Ghana that, “I can tell you for a fact that the turnaround will continue in July and in the subsequent months.”

“I happy for the turnaround in June and given that we have the most affordable tariff on the market, best quality network as per the regulators own reports, best data service in terms of the unlimited packages, and most innovative products like Tigo Insurance, Tigo Cash and others I can assure you that the turnaround will continue going forward,” he said.

The new Tigo Ghana GM is confident that his wealth of experience from Asia, Europe and elsewhere in Africa places him in a strategic position to lead the Tigo Ghana team to better the fortunes of the company.

Adil El Youssefi was GM of Tigo in Chad, which is a less competitive market with just about 32% mobile penetration, and Tigo is currently the market leader in that country with just about 2 million subscribers.

He comes to Ghana at a time when NCA's records show Tigo is the third largest mobile operator in Ghana by subscribers, having lost its long-held number two position to Vodafone.

For eight months running, between October 2011, and May 2012, Tigo lost over 600,000 subscribers, and over 5% market share. This was in spite of the fact that Tigo offers the lowest on-net tariff of 3Gp per minute, unlimited internet packages and some of the most innovative products and value added services on the market.

The new GM attributed the decline to tough competition in the Ghanaian telecoms market, adding “we have a clear understanding of what the challenges are and what needs to be done and I believe we have what it takes to turn things around.”

At least three leading telco bosses in Ghana have predicted there would eventually be consolidations in the telecom market, and some pundits have said Tigo would be one of the brands to be swallowed up when the time comes, but Youssefi said “that cannot be possible because we are extremely very proud of our performance in Ghana as one of the only two telcos making profit after tax in Ghana.”

Youssefi does not seem to share the view that there would be consolidation in the market, but noted that even if there was, Tigo has what it takes to survive and stand tall as one of the strongest brands in the market.

MNP Gains
Indeed Tigo recently showed signs of its resilience by finishing the first year of Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in Ghana as the biggest net gainer with 68,000 subscribers on the positive side of the MNP balance sheet.

Youssefi said MNP gain is another obvious indication of the superiority of the Tigo brand, network quality, and value offerings, given that porting from one network to the other is a matter of the subscribers' choice.

The new GM said the workers of Tigo also deserve much of the credit for the company's performance in MNP, adding that Tigo is also grateful to the consumers for choosing to port to Tigo, and also to the regulator for the excellent consultancy role it played in making MNP work in Ghana.

Tigo MNP agents have particularly been cited in media reports for using unconventional means to lure people to port to Tigo without knowing they have ported, but Yousefi said Tigo as a company does not endorse such behaviour, and have had occasion to sanction a number of agents on that score.

“It is also important to note agents of all telcos are engaging in unconventional practices in MNP but I can assure you that Tigo is too big a company to allow such pettiness to affect our hard-earned integrity over decades,” he said. “Our gain in MNP is not because of this behaviour by hired agents - it is because we have the best quality network, most affordable tariff, most innovative products and best data service on the market.”

Youssefi described Ghana's telecom market as very dynamic, extremely competitive and very regulated, and lauds the regulator for seeking the interest of consumers, particularly in the face of six operators.

He however thinks the regulator also needs have the interest of operators at heart, with the view to assisting operators reduce operational cost (opex) and invest more in the interest of consumers.

“The relationship between the regulator and the operators can sometimes be very challenging because the regulator has consumers' interest at heart - but it is important that the regulator also has operators' interest at heart because operators need to be economically viable to keep investing to meet regulator and consumers' expectations,” he said.

Youssefi said the main regulatory challenges could be the fines and high quality of service standards which are difficult to maintain in the face of challenging operator environment, adding that all those could add to the opex of telcos.

“We are not asking the regulator to lower the quality of service standards – indeed Tigo always comes up tops in terms of meeting those standards, but what we are asking is for the regulator to engage all stakeholders – operators, tower companies and others in finding ways to address the challenges with fibre cuts, power cost and others we face in trying to meet those quality of service standards,” he said.

Watch out for part two of the article from the exclusive interview with the new Tigo GM, where he talks about Tigo's brand positioning, possible listing on Ghana Stock Exchange, the sixth operator, and some other general industry issues.

Story by Ghana/Samuel Nii Narku Dowuona/Adom News