Digicel: Growth markets in PNG

THE Digicel Group has declared Pacific as its growth centre, with a lot of organic growth in markets like Papua New Guinea.
The Caribbean-based cell phone provider noted this in a report last week, in which it revealed  revenues of US$2.2 billion (K6.2 billion) for the financial year ending March 2010, representing a gain year-on-year and a compound annual growth rate of 24% from 2007 to this year.
In the same report, Digicel Group chief executive Colm Delves said the Pacific contributed US$400 million (K1.1 billion) to revenues and had gone from contributing 1.2 million subscribers to 1.7 million for the year in review.
Here, we went from negative the year before to EBITDA   (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) profitability of over US$80 million (K226 million) in one year,” Delves said in a statement yesterday.
“The Pacific is a growth centre for us … we recently acquired a licence in French Polynesia and there is the prospect of entering Timor-Leste.
“Like the Caribbean, there is a lot of organic growth in the markets we are already in like Papua New Guinea.
“Every time we put up a new cell site there, customers are on to it within weeks … we see big opportunities there largely because the penetration is quite low and there is very little infrastructure in that country,” Delves added.
Having launched its operations in Jamaica, Digicel identified areas of potential in Papua New Guinea by flying over its jungles and rural areas to see where people are located.
It then repeats the exercise the following week to see if they are still there … and if that is the case it means that a population centre is there which merits the erection of a cell site.