Robert Varty, Head of Sales at Workz Group was invited to be on the panel of CommsMEA’s discussion on Oman’s telecom market. Here are excerpts from the article.
Last year, monthly ARPU in Oman was just under $21 which if you compare with the UAE market’s $2 is significantly higher.
As we know, operators are in the process of migrating from traditional voice and SMS systems to digital services. When they hit upon an effective business model is when you will see ARPU return to significant strength. Aside from the variety of new digital offerings, operators are looking to increase their voice revenues through a superior VoLTE offering. Given Oman’s LTE investments in infrastructure, they could be well-placed to do this.
Oman’s 4G LTE network covers 80 percent of the country and even ranks ahead of the US, France, Sweden and Japan in regards to network speed (only the UAE is faster within the GCC). Last year, Omantel’s total network investments alone reached over $300m becoming the first GCC operator to lay submarine cable systems which will pave the way for enhanced connectivity.
One of the notable projects Workz Group had been involved within Oman was the introduction of the region’s first ‘smart’ recharge card. This used smartphone technology and a printed QR code on the recharge card to enhance the traditional manual method of adding credit to a subscriber’s phone. This was launched three years ago and today we are delivering the product across a number of GCC markets. This, I think, says two things 1) the Omani market is very receptive to new technology (smartphone penetration is higher in Oman than a lot of European markets) and 2) Omani opcos’ are willing to be bold and try something new.
Read the full CommsMEA article here.