Dennise Williams, Staff reporter"Several Jamaican business have approached us about becoming equity partners," Alex Hill, its chief marketing officer told Wednesday Business. "Right now we are in the early stages. It is very preliminary and no decision has been taken."
Oceanic Digital Jamaica (ODJ), operating under the brand name, MiPhone, launched its commercial wireless service in November 2001, and currently provides islandwide services to approximately 100,000 subscribers with 65 cell sites.
"Once Miphone is in a satisfactory position, we will look at listing on the local stock exchange," Mr. Hill said. "First, we want to build up the business in order to attract private investors."
CAPITAL INTENSIVE
This does not mean that ODJ, owners of MiPhone is planning to dispose of its Jamaican business.
"We are definitely here to stay. It is just that the cellular business is very capital intensive and so it is the nature of the business to look at outside investors," he said. "We would entertain proposals."
However, the focus for the company is to build up market share through innovation. States Mr. Hill, "In 2005 we will be fine-tuning our business plan." Part of Miphone's strategy is to extend its coverage area. Mr. Hill, "By the end of 2004 we had coverage in all 14 parishes. Admittedly in Portland, the coverage is in Port Antonio only. In the year coming we want to extend our coverage in the eastern parishes and the north coast." Yet, Mr. Hill does not see that MiPhone's coverage will ever be complete.
"Any carrier, if they said cellular coverage is complete, you would have a flood of people saying they don't get coverage. The word complete doesn't exist in this business."
Next, MiPhone is focusing on increasing revenue through innovative prepaid packages and convenient ways to add call credit. Mr. Hill said, "We don't offer post-paid services like our competitors, in fact we think that they are outdated. What we offer in terms of pre-paid is a win-win situation for ourselves and our customers - because we offer customers the same package as a pre-paid one and in return we are not taking the risk that customers will use minutes and not pay."
MICHAIRMAN
However, the company is not immune to risk. Last year another prepaid package, MiChairman, was subject to abuse by subscribers. Basically, MiPhone clients were reselling the cheap call minutes. This put the company at risk with the regulators.
"We acted quickly to stop that and learned that we have to expect the unexpected in this business."
MiPhone sees itself as a "lean, low cost operator," he said. "We can't spend a lot of money on sponsorship and promotion as the other guys do."
The phone is necessary but if the carrier is to subsidise phones to get customers on its network, it will not be able to offer lower cost calling plans. Mr. Hill said, "What we focus on is saving customers' money."
The final, if not the most important aspect of their business plan rests on forming strategic partnerships. Most recently, MiPhone, along with other cellular providers, linked up with the National Commercial Bank (NCB) to allow Midas cardholders to top up their cellular accounts through automated teller machines.
According to Mr. Hill, "With each step we take, we are getting a wider audience and we hope that along with NCB, we will be working with other banks in a similar manner."
