digicel trinidad and tobago

Operating in 31 markets across the Caribbean, the mobile phone network Digicel has adopted the role of leading network in the Caribbean, Central American and Oceania regions and since its inception in 2001, has grown to over 12 million wireless users. Don Campbell spoke with Sales Director, Garett Quinn, regarding how the success of the company has developed.

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Garrett explains that it was then that entrepreneur, Denis O’Brien, identified the niche and established Digicel in Jamaica, in April 2001. Having gambled that the marketplace was ready for the services that his company could offer, it paid off handsomely and Digicel grew to 100,000 customers in approximately 100 days. Now, Digicel has a 70% market share in Jamaica and is still growing with over two million customers in Haiti, their largest customer base to date.

“The majority of our networks start up in countries where the telecommunication markets have been newly liberalized,” Garret tell us, “This has occasionally caused friction between some of our executives and the former state incumbent operators but change often does.”

Friction like this has made Digicel the ‘people’s champion’ and kept them in the media limelight, creating a situation whereby people go to them first, as an automatic choice for their wireless provider.

A number of good choices and smart business decisions have kept Digicel at the head of the industry; in 2006 they expanded into Central America by acquiring Digicel Holdings (unrelated) in El Salvador and rebranding it ias El Nuevo Digicel. Digicel El Salvador soon grew to be the second largest operator in the country and in 2007 they won a highly competitive bid for a mobile license in Honduras and a license to operate in Panama that came through in May 2008. In early 2011, Digicel took a controlling stake in Netxar Technologies, the leading systems integrator in the Caribbean region, and in March of the same year they sold its operations in Honduras and El Salvador to Mexican telecome giant Movil. In turn, America Movil sold all of its operations in Jamaica to Digicel, the latter actions strengthened America Movil’s dominance of the Latin American market, while Digicel strengthened its hold on the domestic market. In March 2012, Digicel made the acquisition of Comcel / Voila, its main competitor in Haiti, for $97 million.

“Recently we launched a fibre initiative which we rolled out through Port of Spain,” Garett explains and adds that, in true Digicel fashion, they aimed at providing the best product for their customers


“Digicel prides itself as having the only truly converged business offering to the market in Trinidad and Tobago, with a range of both fixed and mobile voice and data, cloud and infrastructure related solutions,” says Garett.

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There can be no question that Digicel has changed the face of the wireless industry in the region, especially considering the state it was in prior to 2001. During

this period, service in the Caribbean was controlled by British company Cable & Wireless, who were the longtime provider of telecommunication services for the area. With little or no competition and little incentive to change, the wireless service was considered too expensive and poor quality for the Caribbean customers.


with a base product of 30 mega bits down and 10 mega bits up broadband service for TTD$499, “This represents the best value in the business market today”.

Understanding that as one of the leaders in the area, Digicel have set themselves as an example of excellence and sustainability, the Digicel headquarters were built with an investment of $70 million and is the greenest building in the Caribbean. It provides the only executive briefing centre of its kind in the Caribbean and operates as a megastore and customer care walk in centre.

CompetitionDigicel’s largest competitors in the Caribbean region are LIME,

an outgrowth of Cable & Wireless, Claro Americas, part of América Móvil, and Columbus Communications but their approach to out-staging competitors is by increasing their scope and opportunity to service clients. A fine example would be the work they did with their Scotiabank client.

Garret explains that Scotiabank, prior to working with Digicel, were facing a number of challenges within the industry including a high cost of telecommunications, a convoluted administrative system upon multi-technology platforms, high cost of IT maintenance and

support as well as a complete decentralisation. “The solution came in two phases,” Garret explains, “Firstly

we designed and implemented a CISCO Unified Communications Solution that connected fifty branches across six countries.”

“The second phase was to roll out approximately 75 branches across the Caribbean region to help centralise their infrastructure,” he says, “The solution provided significant reduction in telecommunications costs, simplified the management of the systems. Consolidated their support structure and introduced seamless scalability amongst markets.”

A company that is always involved in multiple layers of development and expansion, Digicel have been pioneers in a number of countries. In Vanuatu, similar to many other countries, they reduced the cost of mobile phone ownership dramaticall, making it available to a much larger percentage of the population. At launch, the cost of a phone was 500 vatu compared to the over 1,000 vatu for the incumbent operator, Telecom Vanuatu Limited with its Smile network.

“Additionally we were the first to deploy mobile money services in these countries,” Garret recalls, “Creating an ecosystem of agents that includes the main commercial banks ANZ Bank, BSP, Westpac, National Bank Vanuatu as well as key money movers such as PostFiji and VanuatuPost. The service has been supported by The Pacific Financial Inclusion Program, AusAid and GSM Association’s Mobile Money for the Unbanked initiative.”

CommunityConnecting people is not all that Digicel offers to the inhabitants

of the countries where it has established itself. Digicel is a leading sponsor of Caribbean, Central American and Asia-Pacific sports teams, including the Special Olympics teams throughout these regions. Digicel sponsors the West Indies cricket team and was the title sponsor of the Digicel Caribbean Cup during 2005, 2007, 2008, and 2010.

It also sponsors the Cayman Islands Digicel Cup in football and now sponsors the highest level of football in Trinidad & Tobago, the TT Pro League, known, for sponsorship reasons, as ‘The Digicel Pro League’.

The Digicel FoundationSet up in 2012 to work with the Government and Non-

Govermental Organisations, the Digicel Foundation supports projects in Jamaica, Haiti, Papua New Guinea and Trinidad and Tobago that provide educational, social and cultural opportunities that can inspire positive energy in young people. It is understood that these which will lead to stronger, self-sufficient and sustainable communities.

Board members of the Digicel Foundation are primarily Digicel employees, “We know the best people to drive our corporate


responsibility programmes are Digicel staff members themselves,” Garret says, “We want communities to not only benefit from the financial support of our community programmes, but also from the skills, team work and dedication of our extraordinary staff in order for the projects to be truly sustainable. We do it the Digicel way: careful planning, efficient management and rapid rollout.”

To date, the Digicel Foundation in Jamaica has allocated US$7 million to sustainable development community projects in the country. In Haiti, the Digicel Foundation built 20 primary schools in its first year and donated $5 million after the catastrophic 2010 Haiti earthquake, which struck Port-au-Prince on January 12th.

2015 Is Set To Be A Busy YearDigicel has taken another step in delivering on its promise to

bring technology innovation to Trinidad and Tobago. DigicelMore is the latest in Mobile advertising technology, allowing businesses to tailor their ads from simple SMD to interactive messages, “The DigicelMore service also boasts capabilities of targeting the population through various categories such as location; income level; age; gender and data users.”

This has proved of particular interest to business executives,

who see the benefits as including data analytics at the end of the campaign that allows for better quantifying of results, improvement in advertising effectiveness and a maximisation of target reach. “Simply put, DigicelMore translates into a much more targeted, cost efficient approach to advertising.”

The company has also announced that it has acquired majority ownership and control of St. Lucia-based International Media Content Ltd, a parent company of regional sports broadcaster, SportsMax, and North American broadcaster CEEN-TV, for an undisclosed sum.

Under the terms of the deal, the founder and a number of the lead principals will continue to have an ownership stake and be involved in the day-to-day running of the IMC operation. Currently available in 23 countries across the Caribbean, SportsMax is the Caribbean’s first and only indigenous 24-hour dedicated sports cable channel.

“We are always reaching out to new sectors and new people,” Garret concludes.

digicel trinidad and tobago

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