Dialing into customer-centricity in telecom expansion

Over the last few years, Middle Eastern governments have significantly opened up their telecommunications markets and broken up the monopolies of their state-owned, historic operators. Spectrum licenses were awarded at record prices and the new entrants engaged in head-to-head competition with the incumbents. As a result, mobile penetration soared and rapidly exceeded the psychological limit of 100 percent in many markets. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, mobile penetration was hovering around 30 percent in 2003. In 2008, it quadrupled to 120 percent according to Booz & Company analysis. While this spectacular growth brought countless benefits and choices to the end-users, it does mean today that mobile subscriber acquisition in the mainstream market has become a more difficult challenge. Thus, to achieve the growth and returns their shareholders have come to expect, leading Middle Eastern mobile operators have essentially pursued a two-pronged approach: on the one hand, they want to maximize