Vodafone Qatar completes QR1bn network modernisation

Vodafone Qatar has completed its “comprehensive network modernisation” programme, which began last year, spending nearly QR1bn in total, said company chairman Rashid al-Naimi.
He was addressing Vodafone Qatar’s ordinary and extraordinary general assembly meetings in Doha yesterday.
“Despite the difficult trading conditions the company has faced, Vodafone Qatar has taken important steps to strengthen its operations and network infrastructure to adapt to the changing market and be better-positioned to deliver long term returns,” al-Naimi said.
Addressing the shareholders, al-Naimi said, “The past year has been challenging for the company, with the impact of structural changes in our industry, the increasing use of data at the expense of international voice traffic, and sustained price competition, particularly in the prepaid market, severely impacting our revenue performance.
“Meanwhile, our cost base has increased in line with the growing scale of our business operations, leading to a reduction in our earnings.  As a consequence, the company is not in a position to recommend a dividend for our shareholders for this fiscal year.”
He said Vodafone Qatar “looked to the future with confidence and optimism” that the market was showing signs of recovery.
“We believe the company now possesses the necessary quality infrastructure, clear direction and experienced leadership to deliver value for our shareholders.”
Vodafone Qatar CEO Ian Gray also addressed the audience and said “significant strides” have been made in particular in the last six months “developing a more personal and outstanding” customer service.
“We recently launched the ‘My Vodafone’ smartphone app for simpler customer self-care, and for our enterprise customers we brought the power of Vodafone’s international network to Qatar with the launch of our global ‘Machine to Machine’ platform, part of the Internet of Things.
“The company can now compete better on quality and services and there have been early indications of the success of this approach as the company continued to grow its post-paid base and gain a higher share of higher spending customers in both the consumer and enterprise segments,” Gray said.
With partners including Qnbn, Meeza and GBI the company intends to accelerate its development in this market and in fixed operations led by the enterprise unit and demonstrated through its partnership with the state-of-the-art ‘Msheireb’ development.
To summarise Vodafone Qatar’s future strategy, the CEO said the company was focused on its mission to deliver “innovative products and services and exceptional customer experience” by taking an increasingly segmented approach to the market, differentiating itself through its international brand and the capability available through the Global Vodafone Group. “We now have a superior network, delivered by a talented, effective and efficient team. We shall augment our mobile revenue streams with adjacent business opportunities and follow a cost-effective approach to giving the country choice in fixed services.
“We are enthusiastic about the future for our company with a new board whose input will be valuable, an improved quality in our technical and care delivery and a streamlined organisation allowing us to make decisions faster but with better information. Importantly, we have started to access more of the great innovation being developed by the Vodafone Group, which will be highly relevant to Qatar,” Gray said.
A Vodafone Qatar release last night said its extraordinary general assembly meeting “unanimously approved” among other things setting the foreign investment threshold (excluding GCC nationals) in the company at 49% as per the provisions of the Foreign Investment Law Number (13) of 2000.

Three new independent members elected to Board of Directors
The following three have been elected to Vodafone’s Board of Directors as independent members by majority votes — Abdullah Nasser al-Misnad, Akbar al-Baker and Nasser Jarralla Saeed al-Marri.
The election was held under the supervision of Ministry of Economy & Commerce representatives during Vodafone Qatar’s ordinary and extraordinary general assembly meetings held in Doha yesterday.