Mafsoum

Mafsoum is a great Arabic word. It’s something of a meme in the company wot I work for, made popular by the Jordanians and a word all of us use frequently, and amusingly, in conversation. It’s very useful, one of a few compelling additions to Ten Word Arabic and, when used judiciously, it will scatter your enemies like shouting ‘I’ve got a cobalt bomb in this briefcase!’ would scatter a WEF Plenary. Because mafsoum means ‘schizophrenic’.

Isn’t that cool? Just slip it into conversation: “Enta mafsoum!” (you’re a schizo!) if you’re feeling like risking a black eye, or a sly “Howi mafsoum!” (he’s a schizo).

Why am I babbling about schizophrenia? (‘ere listen to ‘im: ‘es ‘avin’ a go at ver bleedin’ schizowotnots now!)

The fact that Etisalat is promoting a service, on its Weyak mobile services platform, that lets mobile users take pictures and upload them to their Facebook page surely is evidence of a most fundamental schizophrenia. On the one hand they’re blocking social sites like Orkut, Flikr and Twitter and even lumps of Facebook itself, on the other they’re trying to drive the adoption of these services!

Rather cack-handedly, if I’m professionally honest: a blunderbuss of SMS spam is probably not the best communications tool to use in driving adoption of a Facebook related service. Perhaps they'd have been better using... errr.. Facebook?

Is this evidence of an internal battle between conservatism and free thinking radicals? Is it a cross-company integrated strategy to build adoption to the point where the block is untenable? Perhaps it’s just good old fashioned addle-pated organisational idiocy?

Or just simply that they’re mafaseem!...

Dosh

Many years ago I had occasion to interview Andrew Hearn, then the boss of Bahrain Telecommunications Company (Batelco to you, mate). He was a great interview, speaking precisely and pretty much laying it on the line.

One thing he said that really stuck in my mind, and has done up until the present day, was: "Alexander, you have to understand. Only a complete fool can lose money in telecommunications."

Someone hasn't told this lot that...

So they announced they've got 1.75 million users, of which 1.4 million are 'active'. This is the first we've seen the distinction made: certainly not a distinction made when they announced they'd crossed the million (which prompted me to invent The Du test, if you will recall). If you take the 1.4 million figure, that's a loss of Dhs 44 per subscriber in the quarter, or a little over 8%.

Given that Du reached 850,000 subscribers in September last year, Du's result in the last quarter of 2007, a revenue of some Dhs639mn, was achieved with half the number of subscribers. In other words, Du has achieved revenue growth of 18% on subscriber growth of 50%.

Interestingly, and to be fair to poor old Du, their ARPU (Average Revenue Per User, a telecom industry performance benchmark, although not the most accurate but certainly the first figure everyone looks at) would appear to be reasonable - dividing revenue by users, we're looking at an ARPU of something like $49, which ain't too bad - particularly not for a predominantly pre-paid user base.

But I still only know one person who uses a Du mobile...

Meanwhile, Gulf News has been spanking Etisalat over its customer service... and Dubai Sunshine has been spanking Du over theirs!!!

Flacks

The UK has a brilliant online technology publication called The Register. It's been going for quite some time now and has built up a massive and loyal base of readers - it's very influential indeed in technology circles. El Reg, as it likes to style itself, is also pretty hard-hitting - it's cynical, sarcastic and irreverent in the extreme. It's also very good at breaking news and very good indeed at taking a long, hard look at the dynamics of an industry in which it is not only specialised, but entrenched.

Which is why it's such a great read.

So when two, presumably slightly flustered, PR people from British telephone company O2 had a conference call to discuss quite how to deal with the Register's treatment of some issues they've been having with bandwidth allocation, the last thing they'd probably want to do is patch in Register reporter Bill Ray to listen to them discussing how they were going to manage him.

That would be stupidity beyond belief, wouldn't it? That would be Darwin Award class stuff.

Perish the very thought...

Connections

Remember the furore over Nokia shutting down its factory in Germany? This courtesy of pal Gianni who is dead right. It's genius. So much so that I nicked it from him! :)

Cable

It struck me this morning how much this FLAG/SEA ME WE cable outage must be hurting our good friends over at Du Towers given that their network is based on Internet Protocol telephony.

Poor old Du. It must be galling for them not to be able to take over the whole market by slashing prices left right and centre and so not realise one of the main upside benefits of an IP network, while at the same time suffering from the down-side of having an IP network - being horribly exposed to service outages when people drop anchors on your international cable infrastructure.

One of the reasons why the whole country didn't flock to Du when it launched was that the regulator blocked any price competition - mad, when you have an IP based operator launching against a ruggedly circuit-switched incumbent. However, in a perverse sort of way, Du is being paid off for being a not terribly interesting competitor, because it's able to charge circuit-switched telephone rates for an IP network - an absolutely enormous profit margin.

That this state of affairs exists because the regulator is so interested in protecting the vested interests represented by former monopoly and still massively dominant telco Etisalat is undoubted. That it is also artificially halting progress in the market is also undoubted.

However, the fact remains that the Du network is utterly reliant on the Internet to carry its international traffic - and that the recent outages have enabled a quietly gleeful Etisalat to announce that it is helping Du out. Du's response is evident in today's newspapers, a faintly ridiculous slice of blablabla press release announcing that there were now 1.5 million Du customers, which Gulf News for some reason carried faithfully in all its Technicolour puke-inducing glory.

So I called my pal who has a Du mobile and asked how his service had been, rather hoping (I must confess) for a horror story to pop on the blog. But he told me that he'd had no problems at all, that service had been completely unaffected by the recent Internet outages.

As he chatted to me, he started to break up until he was completely inaudible in a sea of pops, clicks and gaps. So I'm not really sure if the Du network has been affected by the cable outages or that's just the service quality he's used to. And I don't know anyone else who uses Du to ask - even though there are, apparently, 1.5 million of them out there...

Headline of the Week

Is it any wonder a bloke gets grumpy? Gulf News today has featured the headline: “etisalat emerges as most recognised mobile telecom operator in UAE”.

I can’t believe it. The monopoly provider of telecommunications to a country for over 30 years ‘emerges’ as a leading brand just over a year after its competitor launched services? Well, I never.

Etisalat’s competitor, the idiotically named Du, has actually achieved 60% brand recognition which isn’t bad, although the Lord alone knows what price tag was attached to that particular achievement. And it’s worth noting that brand recognition alone isn’t much of an achievement – most people I know have a negative or at best neutral reaction to the Du brand. This is not helped by the company’s insistence on making muckle-headed and over-blown announcements about its users or the number of people entering its competitions.

While we’re talking about Du, a minor celebration is in order in Du Towers – for the first time since they launched, last week someone failed the Du Test, asking if my mobile number should be prefixed with 050. Additionally, a highly respected journalist and pal now has a Du mobile. So now I know one person (the other 999,999 are out there somewhere, presumably) who has changed over to the challenger network. I have to record that talking to him is something of an issue as the line cuts constantly, but what to du?

Just to be clear on this: both Etisalat and Du insist on having their names spelt in lower case and I refuse to bow to that demand. It is silly.

Du du du Dah dah dah

I'm a little hesitant to post about Dubai's most splendid and admirable new telecom operator Du again, because last time I took a pop at them the blog was flooded by readers from Du network addresses and picked up some really daft comments from people using Du's corporate network. You can tell they worked for Du because they had Du IPs and they also referred to Du as du which is something only a du employee would Du.

So they care too much, in short.

But I can't resist. We have a new special offer from the telecom operator that likes to say 'Whaaaaaaat?' in the form of a mobile package that offers you a new Du line for a mere 1 Dirham. Yes! Pay only Dhs 55 and get 54 Dhs back in airtime! That means just Dhs 1 for your super Du line!

Except that Dubai's new mobile operator's previous promotion offered subscribers a line for just 1 Dirham! All they had to do was buy a line for Dhs 155 and they got Dhs 154 back in airtime! That meant just Dhs 1 for your line!

The difference, smarter readers will note, is that they've dropped the package price by Dhs 100 ($27 or so, depending on whether we keep the peg of Dhs 3.657 to the Yankee Dollar, which seems likely).

I'm not sure I get it. They're trumpeting a million happy users, but they're dropping their pants on price and the barrier to adoption alike with a promotion that is pricing a new Du line at $15 and presenting it as a 98% cashback deal. Next it'll be a line for Dhs 2 - with Dhs 1 in airtime...

And I still have not had ONE person who has failed the 'Du Test'. So I'm still a little cynical about those million users, too.

If you can't sell a mobile line for Dhs 1 (30-odd cents), what CAN you sell it at? If the barrier to entry, at Dhs 155, is too high in a country with one of the world's highest GDPs per capita, what ARE they getting wrong?

Is dropping price the answer, then, for Du? Or is it time for the company to perhaps consider some smart, differentiated marketing together with a range of targeted service propositions that intelligently segmented audiences in the UAE will buy?

No, I thought not. It's back to mindless jingles and pointless promos then. Watch out for the 'Win a Bar of Gold With Du' promotion. It's only a matter of time...

The Du Test

So Du announced it has reached 850,000 subscribers this week. I do find that interesting in view of the continuing consistency of the results I am receiving from applying The Du Test.

The Du Test is designed to gain a holistic view of the comparative penetration of mobile operators in a given market as a ratio of deployed client side devices in customers’ terminal prehensile upper organs. See?

It consists of giving your mobile number to people without the prefix that the TRA has insisted on introducing to differentiate the two operators. Etisalat’s is 050, Du’s is 055. So you talk to a hotel reservation service, or the electronics shop to arrange a delivery, or the bank to complain (invariably) or the taxi company. And you give your number as the last seven digits only.

Now, if something like a fifth of all people in the UAE (pre-amnesty) are using a Du mobile, you’d expect at least one of those conversations to contain the words: “Is that 050 or 055, sir?”

And not one, not.one, has done so yet.

Nobody I know uses a Du mobile. Some people registered and bought the sim because they could. Others bought in and rejected the service. But nobody I know, personally or professionally, uses it.

Where are they, then? Hands up, you 850,000 brave subscribers! Be heard! Wear it on your shirts with pride! Let us know that you DO du! Run round the malls singing Dudududududududuuu at the top of your voices!

Hmmm. Funny. Silence so far...

GITEX - A Dull Show?

It’s day three of The Show To End All ShowsTM, GITEX, and there’s barely an inspiration to share. The papers are talking about the TV screens on display, which speaks volumes. Only yesterday’s Al Eqtisadiah has broken ranks so far and been publicly highly unimpressed in its front page story.

It has to be said that GITEX is looking like a show that is heading fast down the same road as Which Computer, Comdex and the world's other major horizontal IT trade shows. You don’t go GITEX to enter the Middle East market any more (at least not if you’re a multinational key brand). And you don’t do GITEX if you haven’t got a channel but would like one (there are a million other ways to recruit a channel – besides, everyone who matters has an establishd channel). And you surely don’t do GITEX just to stay ‘in’ with the government (that’s just naïve, no?). The increased frequency of today's product life cycles also means that companies are less willing to hold back products to launch at exhibitions.

And so more and more organisations are realising that they don’t actually have a solid reason to spend the very considerable amount of money it takes to put on a display at the show. This is something that could well be construed as a call for the organisers to significantly re-invent the show: and, in my view, it’s going to take vision, creativity and really smart management to keep the GITEX exhibition relevant to pretty much anyone that matters.

The transformation should arguably have started three years ago. I do wonder if they can compress that into the coming 12 months. If they can, then perhaps there’ll be a show worth attending next year.

How ironic, then, that GITEX should become a victim of its own success. Let's hope they rethink it before it's too late.

Du Slapped Over Offensive Radio Ad

The news comes today that Dubai’s brightest and most exciting new telephone company, Du, has withdrawn its ‘fish and chips’ radio advertisement after complaints from some people that the spot, which featured a chap singing ‘I want some fish and chips’ to the tune of God Save the Queen, was offensive. I must clarify that we’re talking about the British national anthem, not the Sex Pistols’ version. If it had been the Sex Pistols’ version, it might have been a slightly more interesting creative, now I come to think of it.

My Arab colleagues are furious that the British community have had the advertisement withdrawn in this way, as they would very much like Du to also withdraw the Arabic one, which has some daft Egyptian bird extolling the virtues of ‘kusheri’ to a Lebanese waiter and which one colleague was convinced was actually going to be an advertisement for ghee or cooking oil until the end. They reckon the Arabic ad is even more irritating and mindless than the English one was.

Radio ads. You gotta love ‘em…

White Paper Wiki

By the way, we put quite a lot of research work into into preparation for the session at the Arab Advisors Media and Convergence Conference, which resulted in us producing a White Paper document on what we found. It should make reasonably interesting reading for anyone involved in the Middle East regional ICT industry: please do feel free to download/distribute/extract from and/or link to it.

It’s posted here on a Wiki which should, if anybody gives a damn about increasing broadband penetration in the Middle East, attract more contributions, documentation, research and other useful stuff – anyone’s welcome to a password. I somehow suspect this won’t happen, but then perhaps I’m just far too cynical. Perhaps.