Zain reduces target by 27 per cent

Pan-African and Arab mobile operator Zain has reduced the subscriber target of its ACE (Accelerate, Consolidate, and Expansion) strategy to 110 million subscribers, down from a target of addressing 150 million subscribers by 2011. The three pillars of Zain’s ACE strategy, which were devised by group CEO Saad Al Barrak, had been to attain a US$6 billion EBITDA by 2011, become one of the top 10 leading telecoms
companies in the world by market capitalisation, and exceed 150 million customers across all its operations.

Speaking at the Africa Com event in Cape Town last month, Zain Africa CEO Chris Gabriel, publicly referred to the updated subscriber forecast, and the original 150 million figure no longer appears on the company’s website.

As of end September 2008, Zain counted 56 million subscribers, which represented a 54 per cent increase year-on-year. The operator’s EBITDA reached US$2.069 billion for the nine months to end-September, a 19 per cent increase compared to the same period in 2007.

It has been suggested that Zain’s inability to so far enter the Indian market has been a leading factor in the reduction of its subscriber forecast to 2011, though the operator is understood to remain interested in large population markets such as Iran.