VOICE

FROM OPERATORS

Yemen Mobile is aiming high

The Arab Advisors Group projects Yemens cellular market to grow at a CAGR of 15.7% from 2008 to 2012,
reaching 10.537 million subscribers (a cellular penetration rate of 42.4%). At the same time, the entrance of
a fourth cellular operator in 2007 has enhanced competition in the Yemeni cellular market. COMMUNICATE
invited Mr. Sadek M. Mousleh, CEO of Yemen Mobile to share with us their experiences and strategies in market
development and network expansion.

By Julia Yao

OMMUNICATE: We know
that Yemen Mobile has
the biggest market share
of 32% and is a respectful
and valuable brand in Yemen telecom
market. How will Yemen Mobile
prepare, in terms of business operation,
network construction, etc. to grasp the
strong market growth and maintain a
competitive edge?
Mr. Mousleh: We have a plan for the
coming years to attract new subscribers.
Firstly, as the only operator with 3G
license, we announced in June 2008 that
we would upgrade our CDMA network
to provide EV-DO services in 2009. We
hope to attract more business subscribers
towards our fast-speed data services. In
addition, we are working hard to increase
our coverage to cover all Yemen rural areas.
Also it is worth noting that we offer the

11 JAN 2009 . ISSUE 46

best call tariffs in the Yemeni mobile phone

market. We are honest to our subscribers
and our reputation is very good. With
wider network coverage, new 3G services
and attractive tariffs, we are confident that
we can gain a substantial number of new
subscribers, both on the high-end and lowend, in the competitive Yemeni market.
COMMUNICATE: The teledensity
in Yemen is among the lowest in the
Arab states. I guess many Yemeni people
are just starting to use mobile phones
for basic voice connection. Do you
think there are sufficient demands to
justify your 3G initiative? What are
the timetable for network deployment,
service rollout and business strategy?
Mr. Mousleh: Our 3G services will
target VIP customers such as oil companies
and banks to increase our revenues and

profit. We find that there is a strong

demand for high-speed data services from
those business clients, which unfortunately
is not met by the current services available
in the Yemeni market. We also notice that
these customers dont really care about the
prices of such services as long as they get
these services. We will provide them with
a comprehensive service portfolio covering
voice, data and roaming. Moreover, the
oil companies are usually located in some
rural areas or even deserts. While it is
costly and difficult to deploy cable in those
environments, for mobile services, it is
feasible and fast to deploy. This makes a lot
of sense for our decision to go for 3G.
We have contracted Huawei for the
network EV-DO upgrade project. We
plan to launch 3G services by March 2009
in some main cities and locations of oil
companies in Yemen.

Our 3G services will target VIP customers

such as oil companies and banks to increase our
revenues and profit. We find that there is a strong
demand for high-speed data services from those
business clients, which unfortunately is not met by
the current services available in the Yemeni market.

COMMUNICATE: You mentioned

that you are going to expand your
network coverage for rural areas. Could
you briefly introduce the deployment
plan?
Mr. Mousleh: Among our 1.9 million
subscriber base, about 30 percent of which
represent rural subscribers. Before we
were focusing on urban cities, and now
we have plans to move to rural areas. One
advantage Yemen Mobile has its large
network coverage compared to that of its
competitors. We are the first operator in
Yemen to have covered most of the country
of which about 70% of the populated
areas. Now, we are trying to cover the rest
of the rural areas also. We plan to install
60 new base stations in 6 months, most of
which would be in rural areas to provide
both voice and data services.
COMMUNICATE: The rural
environment is often characterized by
under-developed infrastructure, lack of
power and cost pressure to serve low-end
customers. How do you cope with these
challenges?
Mr. Mousleh: We have the same
challenges in rural areas, and this makes
going for the rural areas costly for us. We
decided to roll out deployment gradually
and find out the most suitable alternatives.
For example, in areas where there is no
electricity, we would either use our own

generators or solar cells, depending on the

BTS capacity and power consumption.
I mean in dense rural areas, we have to
install large BTS for which solar can not
support the required energy. We are glad
that with Huaweis new BTSs which have
lower power consumption, we are able to
use solar energy even in some rural areas
with high capacity.
COMMUNICATE: Yemen Mobile is
the only CDMA operator in the Yemeni
cellular market. There are a couple of
issues common for CDMA networks,
such as limited handset choices and
roaming constraints. How do you see
those issues affect your business and
how would you cope with those?
Mr. Mousleh: The lack of handsets is
a problem for us. Actually, it has hindered
our attempt to launch more innovative
services, such as MMS, SMS long and
cell broadcast. Its still a problem, but
somehow it has improved. We are looking
for possible solutions such as buying from
more suppliers and are considering asking
handset vendor to customize handsets for
our subscribers.
Now we have a lot of suppliers and
the price is relatively good now. You can
now find handsets priced at 50 to 300
U.S. dollars whereas you would not find
handsets less than 150 U.S. dollars before.
In addition, CDMA recently has been

launched in Sudan, Morocco, Mauritania

and many more countries. As the number
of CDMA operators increases, it helps
us to solve this problem because of scale
of economy. We are contacting and
encouraging suppliers to sell handsets to
the Yemeni market and also the Arabian
country market.
Roaming used to be a problem and it
is solved now. We made a contract with
one GSM partner and it can support
international roaming in 200 countries.
So any subscriber of ours can make phone
calls when he travels abroad. But still, he
needs to insert his CDMA card into a GSM
phone while roaming outside Yemen.
COMMUNICATE: How do you see
Huawei could help you, in addition to
providing network equipment?
Mr. Mousleh: We consider Huawei as
our partner and also consultant. We began
working together from the beginning of
2001 before Yemen Mobile was officially
established. During the past years, with
the assistance and support of Huawei, we
started business from CDMA WLL which
progressed to mobile CDMA now evolving
to EV-DO. We saw our subscriber base grow
from zero to 1.9 million. We have compared
several suppliers, and found Huaweis
solutions and prices are the best. Huawei can
really deliver customers requirements.
Editor: Gao Xianrui sally@huawei.com
JAN 2009 . ISSUE 46

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