Banglalink aims high to make mobile telephony affordable to mass people
 

Egyptian telecom giant Orascom entered into Bangladesh market by purchasing the total share of Sheba Telecom Ltd. and launched its operation under the brandname Banglalink with a clear vision and target - making mobile telephony more affordable to mass people for expanding the subscribers' base first and get growing up with the growth of the sector which has immense potential for future investment and market expansion.

The launching of Banglalink's operation has shaken the cell phone market by its inaugural offer with very attractive handset price and low connection cost which were the main entry barriers for new subscribers to enter the base of mobile telephony. And by launching with attractive offers and promises of quality services, the company has brought about many positive changes and most important one is the competitiveness it has brought in the market and helped fostering the pace of the growth of the sector which is ultimately boosting the new company's growth as well. After launching of Banglalink on February 10 this year, every thing is get-going as planned and the company is satisfied with its performance and pace of growth, said Omer Rashid, Marketing Director of Banglalink during an exclusive interview with DeshiMobile.com and Bangladeshinfo.com at its Land View Commercial Centre office in the City's Gulshan-2 area on May 26.

The company was launched with a network connecting key cities and towns in nine districts only for providing quality network facilities and within three months the company has expanded its network in 25 districts and within a year the company is eyeing to bring all the 61 districts under its brand new and very high quality network. World famous telecom solutions and networking firm Siemens has inked a 50 million dollar networking contract with Banglalink and now is working on setting up the high-tech network base across the country. Omer Rashid said "Quality of the network is very high and you'll feel the difference while talking to others through Banglalink network. Moreover the company is very happy with the pace of company's growth in a much competitive market."

Answering a question why subscribers should choose banglalink, Omer said "Right now Banglalink is offering the most affordable connection with a mobile-to-mobile connection costing only Tk 200 with 1000 SMS, Tk 20 talk time and a music CD of famous singer free while a mole standard connection costing Tk 1499 with Tk 320 talktime free. Moreover Banglalink has introduced International SMS for the first time in Bangladesh as just a three-month old company where as the other operators who are here for years have failed to do so. Also as a first company Banglalink has brought in entertainment based value added services like 'SMS Adda' which is a Internet based chat service, conference calling for pre-paid subscribers what the other operators offer to post-paid customers only. More over voice telephony services, validity extension of cards, very consistent inter-connectivity with other operators and BTTB which are very fine in terms of high quality because of the brand new network and the technology behind it."

While answering a very straight question about the three-month old company's subscriber base, the marketing maestro said right now the company has more than 3.5 lakh subscribers and the number is going up every day as the company is adding many more new value added services by considering the present and future needs of the subscribers and encourage greater usage of the line by putting in many things to make it a part of life.

About the overall growth of the sector, he said though telecom experts and market surveys put different figures, but Bangladesh's potentials of market growth is huge considering its size of population, economic growth and the present 5 million subscribe base could grow up to 15 to 2o million within three to four years.

About the huge sum of spending on media blitz, he said "As a new company we wanted to let the people know about us and feel the market presence of the company very prominently and also to attract the target group we wanted to reach. "

Answering the key question of 'turning the pulse war into price war', Omer said " Even that had happened as the pulse war has already sparked off an indirect price war because the major competitors -- GrameenPhone and Aktel - has reduced their package prices, extended validity time of cards, handset prices have also come down as the volumes of trade has gone up and the overall expenditure of subscribers have decreased significantly and the overall market have grown and a reduction of prices have seen in all areas."

But he added "Vigorous price war is not necessarily always beneficial for all the players including the subscribers and operators because it reduces the ability of further investment and if the prices go down and does not allow further investment or reinvestment then the quality of services go down too. Because there is always trade off in the market."

Banglalink is very much interested to bring in new and innovative things assessing the human needs and developing products based on those needs and in future it will continue to offer many attractive packages for its subscribers to keep up that trend, said Omer while talking about future packages which will hit the market for expanding the company base as quickly as possible and keep the momentum of company growth going.

Answering another question over SMS, Omer said subscribers are very positively responding to its unique International SMS offer and also to the package with 1,000 SMS free as SMS is getting a very useful means of communication in the country as well. Banglalink has started its International SMS offer with 81 countries and now it has been extended to 171 countries even in states where Bangladesh has sent soldiers for UN peacekeepers missions like Democratic Republic of Congo and Sierra Leone. Now Bangladeshis can sent SMS to theses countries and keep in touch with their relatives. And Banglalink is making a very conscious effort to make SMS popular in the country as most effective means of communications. And a lot of value can be added as it has a very high potentials if all the avenues like SMS e-mail, SMS chat, weather updates, cricket score updates etc can be tapped. So the company want to exploit full potentials of the SMS by introducing relevant services.

Banglalink could offer the most attractive inaugural package so far with very low handset prices because the company had a plan for that and it had to provide subsidies for the handsets and the sets were not tax or duty free. And the Banglalink's target was remove the initial barriers to expand the market first and make mobile telephony affordable to mass people by cutting the overall costs and handset prices even and no other operators had earlier focused on that, which was the main objective of the inaugural offer, said Omer.

Now after Banlalink's arrival the competition in the market has turned so intense that everyday something is happening and the competitors are bringing in new packages and offer every other day to outsmart others and prices are certainly coming down and there is no tacit understanding among the operators about keeping the call charge intact, he said answering another question about operators' unity in not cutting call charges straightway.

And competition could be seen on newspapers advertisements the operators are putting in everyday, though there are lack of clarity on those advertisements. Because there are highlights on one thing and footnotes say something else and making readers totally confused about actually what is on the offer. But Banglalink is very clear in their advertisements about what's on the offer to the point and always prefer to it's communication very clearly stated to avoid misunderstanding, said the marketing guru of the new kid on the Bangladesh's mobile market.

Answering the last question regarding the threat of TeleTalk to Banglalink's business, Omer said, "It's too early to comment on that because the company has just started distributing forms and there are a lot of things regarding quality of services and network connectivity which would come in the focus of subscribers latter. So it's little too early to comment and Banglalink has no inter-connectivity contract with TeleTalk as yet like other operators. "