Promotions run by telecommunications
companies for their subscribers is critical to the success of business as it
encourages healthy competition among operators, the Chief Executive Officer,
Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Steven Evans, has said.
He said this in Lagos on Thursday
while addressing journalists at a Mobile Number Portability forum organised by
the company.
Evans said a ban on promos was
synonymous to “a ban on competition”; as such ban would only favour the
dominant player in the market.
“Promos make telecoms business
competitive. A ban on promos only favours one company,” he stressed.
Commenting on the MNP scheme, the
Etisalat boss said six weeks into the scheme several thousands of subscribers
had ported to its network. He, however, declined to give the actual figure.
“We are feeling quite happy as people
get more confident in the process. For us, porting is definitely a success,” he
said.
Speaking on the reason behind the
firm’s late MNP campaign, Evans said the major concern of Etisalat was to make
sure the process was running appropriately and the consumer experience was
positive, with the porting process happening smoothly. The firm commenced its
MNP campaign on June 3, this year.
He commended the Nigerian
Communications Commission for playing a constructive role in the process,
saying Etisalat currently has a capacity for 20 million subscribers.
Subscribers on the network are said to be over 15 million currently.
According to him, the firm is
committing between $400m to $500m to its network upgrade for this year and
2014, and remained confident that even if it runs promos, there would be very
low impact on the congestion of its network.
He said the firm made operating
profit in the last quarter of 2011, and hopes to make profit after interests
and taxes by 2015.
Evens described MNP as a very
important element of a competitive market, but added that the scheme is not for
every subscriber.
“It concerns mainly those that have a
number for a long time and have been known with that number, and are
unsatisfied with the network,” he explained.
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