Strategic insights and content viewpoints from Huawei, TA Telecom, Virgin Mobile, Smile and 2Go on Day 1 of VAS Africa

For the first time this year VAS Africa was co-located with MVNOs Africa, and more than 250 delegates from the two events joined the opening keynote session on June 24^th at the Maslow Sandton in Johannesburg.  

With strategic insight from Huawei and TA Telecom, together with operator and content viewpoints from Virgin Mobile, Smile and 2Go, the keynote session set the scene for a day discussing innovation in both technology and marketing strategies.

Panellists and speakers assessed the role of operators in the expanding digital ecosystem – dumb pipe/data channel or innovator, with emphasis placed this year on the importance of the role of pipe/channel.  The conference went on to discuss the opportunities available from partnerships with OTT players and content providers.  Operators should consider aligning their strategies with the likes of skype, viber and whatsapp – to maximise what these players are doing within the operators’ own strategies.  Alignment and partnership were deemed to be the way forward, not competition.

Focus on the customer is key.  Is the customer educated on the cost of data consumption?  Is the app/service easy to use?  Is the content relevant and local to the customer?  What services will create stickiness?  Where is the consumer and how do they prefer to receive the content/services?  Also important to remember is that while 154 million African customers use a smartphone, still 931 million use the feature hone.

The first day concluded with the Mobile Marketing and Advertising session, bringing case studies of new ways to target the consumer via mobile.  At the heart of the day was the reminder that the operator knows the customer best and thus retains a pivotal role in the expanding digital ecosystem.

Together with the key content take-aways, delegates enjoyed extensive networking opportunities across the VAS and MVNOs events - speed networking, one-to-one introductions and an informal drinks reception at the close of the day.  Join us for day two and a focus on Mobile Money, Mobile Music, Social Networking, and Key VAS for the African market.

 Join us for day two of VAS Africa to hear from MTN, Cell C, Safaricom, Nokia and many more.

Ghana: Vodafone commits to $120m network upgrade

It has been impossible of late not to set telecoms news and commentary in the context of these troubled times for the global economy. I find myself looking for signs of our sector's resilience. In that spirit, I am keen to flag up examples of telcos committing to significant items of CAPEX. One such, reported last week in the Global Mobile Daily is Vodafone's selection of network vendor Huawei to upgrade the 2G network of the national incumbent carrier, Ghana Telecom, in which the giant cellco acquired a 70% stake back in July 2008.

At the same time as entering Ghana's mobile market, Vodafone also took over Ghana Telecom's fixed-line and broadband operation, which has around 99% of the total number of lines and around 90% share of the retail ADSL market. Ghana Telecom's mobile arm, One Touch, has been something of an underperformer. The MNO claimed 15.49% of mobile subscriptions by December 2008, according to Informa Telecoms & Media's World Cellular Information Service. This represents a slow, but steady decline in market share, which had stood at 18.29% at the end of 2006. Over this period, market-leading Scancom, a unit of the South Africa's MTN has held onto a solid lead over its four rivals. According to an article in Ghana's Chronicle newspaper last week, Vodafone will be aiming to compete more effectively in this context through a "commitment to deliver on its promise of providing a world class service to Ghanaians and to transform Ghana Telecom to an enviable position in the telecom industry."

Ghana will be among the countries to be represented at our West & Central Africa Com event, which this year will take place in Abuja, Nigeria in mid-June. The event will be a good opportunity to network and do business with all those involved in developing the region's telecoms sector.

Russian cellco gets to work in Cambodia

Earlier this week, Global Mobile Daily picked up on developments in Cambodia, where Russian cellco Vimpelcom has made progress with setting up its newest foreign operation. Chinese vendor Huawei has picked up the contract to roll out a nationwide GSM900/1800 network for Sotelco, 90% of whose parent company, Atlas Trade was purchased by Vimpelcom in July this year. This stake was bought from Vimpelcom's largest shareholder, Altimo.

Having just completed the speaker line-up and agenda for our Eurasia Com event (March 31 & 1 April 2009, Istanbul), we continue to watch Moscow-based telcos and investors such as Vimpelcom and Altimo, with a view to assembling another compelling set of presenters for the Moscow event whose discussions are more sharply focused on developments in the Russian Federation itself, as well as neighbouring states Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova.