November 14th, 2013 — Issue 40 October/November 2013
Alcatel-Lucent continues to make strong progress in the Middle East and North Africa. The company’s president for the region, Pierre Chaume, sat down and detailed the company’s areas of progress
Pierre Chaume says Alcatel-Lucent in MENA is well set to mobilise the full range of the company’s assets and resources to achieve a decisive swing in the group’s industrial focus in line with ‘The Shift Plan’
November 10th, 2013 — Issue 40 October/November 2013
Last June, Dubai-based FRiENDI Group entered into a strategic partnership with Virgin Group, which saw the UK conglomerate combine its South Africa mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), Virgin Mobile South Africa (VMSA), into FRiENDI Group’s portfolio of MVNO operations. The creation of Virgin Mobile Middle East & Africa (VMMEA) resulted in the VMSA management reporting line being extended to VMMEA’s Dubai headquarters, from where operational and strategic direction has been rendered, and the results on the ground have been nothing short of exceptional
Anton Landman was appointed CEO of Virgin Mobile South Africa in July 2013, having previously been the company’s CFO
November 3rd, 2013 — Issue 40 October/November 2013
Ericsson has conducted research into what are the recurring characteristics of successful global telecom operators, and has devised six ‘growth codes’ that it believes service providers can implement in order to consolidate their development and market positions. Anders Lindblad, Ericsson’s president for the Middle East, details Ericsson’s outlook
Anders Lindblad says that operators that have learnt to maximise returns from broadband network investments are typically the ones leading their respective markets
October 7th, 2013 — Issue 40 October/November 2013
Regional operators have discovered that traditional network key performance indicators (KPIs) do not always reflect what the customer is actually experiencing and thus his/her accurate satisfaction. In fact, an operator can boast the top KPIs in a given market and still lose market share to a competitor with a lower KPI score but a more compelling end-user experience. For operators in the Middle East, a strong Customer Experience Management (CEM) solution is clearly a mandatory direction, but what does that actually look like?
Xia Chaojie, VP Delivery & Service, Middle East, Huawei
October 2nd, 2013 — Issue 40 October/November 2013
As a brand architect and occasional ‘brand evangelist’ I am often surprised by the fast adoption of brands by Middle Eastern consumers. We love brands here and are keen to adopt them and make our mark with them because they are powerful ‘quick signifiers’ of social status. 
Liam Farrell is founding partner and executive creative director of Unisono
Batelco has successfully activated 5G coverage across Bahrain, which is available in all four governorates, covering 95% of the nation’s population. The telco’s launch of the network makes Batelco the first operator to provide national 5G coverage in Bahrain.
Omantel has renewed and expanded its managed services agreement with Ericsson for a further five years, with the renewed agreement being more outcome-based and customer-centric.
South Africa-headquartered MTN Group CEO Rob Shuter will step down from his role at the end of his fixed four-year contract in March 2021, having given no explanation why he would not seek to stay on beyond that date.
Nokia CEO and president, Rajeev Suri, is set to step down from his position later this year, to be replaced by Pekka Lundmark, currently CEO and president of energy company Fortum. The move comes as Nokia struggles to keep pace with the global shift to 5G.
Following Zain Group’s regional milestone announcement in November 2019 that its operations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia had successfully launched the first 5G roaming service across the MENA region, Bahrain telco Batelco has announced partnering with the UAE’s du to deliver 5G international roaming services in the UAE.
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