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High growth markets bring huge business opportunities but in challenging business environments. These challenges can take many forms – operational, economic, political and cultural. Thriving under these harsh conditions takes special skills and strong partnerships.
To see how things work in the real world, let’s look at the case of Orange Côte d'Ivoire (CI). We’ll hear from François B. Brunet, CEO, Orange Côte d'Ivoire and from Marta Muňoz Méndez-Villamil, Senior Analyst, Ovum.
Partnering for Subscriber Growth – Orange’s view
François B. Brunet, CEO, Orange Côte d'Ivoire
“2005 was for us an exceptional year with a more than 50 percent increase in our subscriber base and we surpassed our millionth client. This was for us a big event. But we will go even further in 2006. We ended 2005 with 1,260,000 customers. We are very ambitious and we have the means to realize these ambitions.”
Superior Adaptability – Orange’s view
François B. Brunet, CEO, Orange Côte d'Ivoire
“In the beginning of 2005, when I came to the Ivory Coast, Alcatel was a little bit late deploying our investments ordered in 2004 due to the socio-political crisis which had forced a lot of expatriates to leave. But, very rapidly, and right from the first quarter, Alcatel succeeded in mobilizing its teams and they sent experts to implement the equipment. This is proof of their adaptability.”
Alcatel’s Strengths In Emerging Markets – Analyst Opinion
Marta Munoz Mendez-Villamil, Analyst, Ovum
“Alcatel’s strengths in emerging markets in our view are mainly its presence in these emerging markets. Alcatel has a very strong presence already in most of these markets – it’s very strong in China and India for example – and that offers it a very good position to offer services and products that are being built and manufactured in these markets without being taxed heavily by some of the existing tax and regulations that these markets may have. So that’s certainly a key strength of Alcatel.
There is a second strength for Alcatel and it’s perhaps coming more in recent years with some of the deals that it’s beginning to put in place with some of the handset vendors and the handset manufacturers, and it’s the capacity to bring an end-to-end solution to the table. That is key for emerging markets, because handsets can be a severe limitation for mobile growth. And certainly Alcatel is in a much better position today than it was several years ago in that perspective now. But those two key strengths of Alcatel in emerging markets today for sure – its local presence and the ability to bring an end-to-end solution at the moment.”
The Challenge
In less than ten years, Orange Côte d'Ivoire (CI) has gone from the third-ranked mobile operator in the Ivory Coast to the undisputed market leader. Key has been to capture revenue from both the high and low ARPU segments.
Critical to this success has been its partnership with Alcatel whose experience delivering flexible solutions in emerging markets has made the big difference. In fact, with Alcatel’s help in 2005, Orange CI increased its subscriber base by more than 50 percent, bringing the total to almost 1.3 million.
A Flexible, End-to-End Solution
Orange CI choose on Alcatel for its well-rounded portfolio of mobile solutions, integration and turnkey capability, as well as its best-of-breed payment system.
For Orange CI, Alcatel’s leadership in high growth markets was also important. The statistics told the story. In greenfield and high growth markets, Alcatel’s market share was 18 percent in the Middle East and 28 percent in Africa – where it’s still Number One. In Latin America, Alcatel was one of the top four GSM suppliers. And, in high growth markets around the world, its market share was 18 percent, and continuing to grow.
Drawing on this experience, Alcatel provided Orange CI with an end-to-end Evolium®-based, GSM network. With this network, Orange CI gets rapid time-to-market, as well as the capability to evolve its network, cost-effectively and easily, to new technologies such as GPRS and EDGE.
Orange CI is also thinking seriously about Alcatel’s hosting and outsourcing models, designed to reduce CAPEX and OPEX. And with Alcatel preparing the way for the rapid adoption of mobile WiMAX, Orange CI is also considering the implications of this high growth-market friendly technology for its own network.
Looking Forward
With the Evolium® portfolio, Orange CI and other mobile operators in rapidly growing markets are taking advantage of far-reaching coverage at the lowest cost per square kilometre with the best return on investment (ROI). This, in combination with Alcatel’s integration and technical expertise, is giving mobile operators the edge they need to remain competitive in hotly contested markets.
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