Digicel subscriber base rises to 1.9m

Digicel, the mobile phone group owned by Denis O'Brien, now has an estimated 1.9 million subscribers, according to a London-based telecoms intelligence provider.

Informa Telecoms & Media estimates Digicel's main rival in the region, Cable & Wireless (C&W), has 1.5 million clients.

A spokeswoman for Digicel said the company did not discuss subscriber numbers. "We have a 63 per cent market share," she said. Most recent reports put Digicel's subscriber total at 1.7 million.

The spokeswoman said Digicel operated in 15 countries in the Caribbean and planned to be operating in 22 countries by the end of this year.

Digicel, in which Mr O'Brien has a greater than 85 per cent stake, has invested $1 billion (€832 million) since it started in Jamaica five years ago. It recently launched Wimax, the broadband wireless service, in the Cayman Islands and intends to roll out the service in the Caribbean, where C&W is the main broadband supplier.

London-based C&W is going through a series of difficulties. It issued a profit warning last week concerning its British unit, and its chief executive resigned. Yesterday there were reports that its chief financial officer was also likely to leave. Since 2001 the C&W group has issued six profit warnings.

There has also been speculation that C&W could be a takeover target, with France Telecom being mentioned as well as Icelandic billionaire Thor Bjorgolfsson.

"Where it has stepped into new markets Digicel has quickly knocked the incumbent - in most cases Cable & Wireless - off the top spot," Ana Hermoso, North American and Caribbean telecoms analyst with Informa Telecoms & Media, told The Irish Times. "Previously C&W appears to have been resting on its laurels but it is now frantically trying to meet the challenge from Digicel with new pricing plans and product offerings."

Ms Hermoso said Digicel, which started in Jamaica when it liberalised its market in 1999, "has big plans and is starting to achieve them. Its goal is to build a seamless pan-Caribbean network, which will be a far cry from the way in which localised wireless networks have previously been deployed in the Caribbean."

She said one possible problem for Digicel might be that it would spread itself too thinly, rolling out networks in too many markets at once. There have been rumours that Digicel is looking for an investment partner but Ms Hermoso said she did not believe this was the case and the company had denied it.

"Informa Telecoms does not believe Digicel will look to partner with any other investor in 2006 but it will have to be selective about which markets it throws money into, weighing up the differences in the likely return on investment between markets as diverse as Haiti and Jamaica."

Ms Hermoso said Digicel had shaken up the wireless industry across the Caribbean using a business strategy based on flexible pricing, good coverage and a strong brand image.