Going by the obvious imbalance in the economy of CDMA operators when compared to that of their GSM counterparts, experts in the ICT sector have predicted that  mergers and acquisitions among the CDMA companies may become so inevitable in the near future.

•Balachandran, CEO VIsafone

But one of the operators, Visafone has said that even if that is to happen, it would rather swallow others than to be swallowed.

Visafone is however not making this stout assertion basically on account of a solid financial footing, but on a strong business philosophy and service offering that it believes would not allow it to go under.

Besides, it flaunts undying Nigerian spirit, being a Nigerian company, as an edge over operators that may easily melt into others should acquisitions and mergers become the order of the day in the CDMA sector.

Nevertheless, the future of CDMA operation in the country still looks bleak considering a dwindling fortune particularly in the 2009 fiscal year. Although the operators added tremendously to their subscriber base following the upgrading of their regional licences to Unified Access Services Licences in 2006, almost all of them recorded huge financial losses in the last year.

The situation is made worse by severe competition which sees the operators undoing each other in either tariff reduction or rebate in handset acquisition in order to lead in subscriber base but at the end of the day the gains do not seem to tally with the investment.

The situation sparked off a suggestion recently by the Chief Executive Officer of Telkom South Africa, Mr. Reuben September, to divest his company’s interest in Multilinks. In 2007, Telkom, acquired 75 per cent of Multilinks for $280m in a bid to expand further outside its South African home base.

But now September believes that Multilinks which was supposed to be a breath of life for Telkom, is increasingly becoming a liability and regretted that he dolled out that huge some to acquire it.
September’s fury was fueled by Multilinks’ loss in before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation pegged at about $88m in 2009 fiscal year.

However, it is not only September that feels the heartbreak of what is happening in that sector. A few days before a substantive EVC was appointed for the NCC, Hi-tech got in touch with the Executive Commissioner, Engineering and Standards who then also doubled as Acting EVC of the commission, Dr Bashir Gwandu. In a heart to heart talk on several issues surrounding the growth and development of ICT in Nigeria, Gwandu expressed that one of his worries was how to save the CDMA operators from themselves and make them play the total telecom solution provider catalyst they were supposed to be.

Gwandu even promised that if he were to be confirmed the substantive EVC, the first step he would have taken was to look them in the face and ask that they consolidate. For obvious reasons many ICT enthusiast still believe it is the best way to go.

However, Visafone says that even though the imbalance in the economy is a serious worry, the spirit to fight and survive have determinants which incidentally lied in the company’s vision of coming into the market in the first place.
Managing Director of the company, Mr Ramachandran Balachandran highlighted three reasons the company may not possibly bow to any other company in terms of acquisition. They include strong fundermentals, rich customer trust and very robust technological platform.

According to him, “ although we know that we are young operator of only about two years and some months, we still have a long way to go and our fundamentals are very strong. Most people think fundamentals in money terms, but we see fundamental as a future and we have grown significantly, obviously into various areas. We also have very high professionals as customers but quite apart from that, we also have a very strong bond with them.

“Besides we also have a strong line, back and forward and we have a reach in terms of our overall strength and performance. Honestly, given our stage in life, we are far ahead of companies in similar situation. This is due to our orientation towards a long term and not just the short term.

For us,  it’s not about growing revenue but managing the cost very well because that’s important to do more at the same time and as a result, I can say with confidence that we as two and half year old company certainly are far ahead what many two and half years companies should have been, not only here but in other parts of the world.

“ However, that’s just one point. The second is customer trust. Incidentally, the most difficult aspect of any company’s growth life is winning trust and brand loyalty because in telecommunications, customers are really hard customers. they don’t build the franchise easily without testing and today, they have a lot of choice, putting every operator on test everyday. We realise that every time our customers make a phone call or a data call, they are testing us.

So we have won the trust of the customers and we are building on that trust by providing them with the quality of service which they will be comfortable with. The level of emotional connection between us and our customers is such that we can’t toy with and indeed this is one of the greatest assets that we will bring into the future.

“Yet, we made a clear technology choice. When we were beginning this journey we decided that our strategic focus would be the bottom of the pyramid. it is not a focus that happen by chance but by choice and design and we are focused to say that we know how to do business at the bottom of the pyramid. Doing business at the bottom of pyramid requires skills not only on how to make money but how to manage cost .

So we chose the right technology in CDMA to back it up. CDMA provides amazing speed level in data services. So you can say we are telecom operators who chose CDMA as a platform and not CDMA operators who want to operate like telecom operators.

That is why others are failing where we succeeded. All of these things are what makes us believe strongly that we have the direction, we are a strong player.

Our sight is fixed forward and at the four walls of business. we always watch what we do like any prudent player that has a clear call and direction ahead.

As far as we are concerned, anything we do must have a strategic impact and it must impact positively on our customers and customer service. that’s the kind of things that we will do and why I have the confidence that even if consolidation comes we will surely swallow others rather than being swallowed.