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With a peculiar launch last Thursday, Wom arrived in Colombia and was presented as the new alternative that seeks to “break the chains that telecommunications operators have on users.” Chris Bannister, director in Colombia of the new operator, spoke with EL TIEMPO about what will be the start of operations of the company and the strategies they have to achieve the goal of 25% market share.
Wom arrives in the country amid controversy after an error in the auction for the award of the radioelectric spectrum in December 2019 and an investigation for alleged illegal use of the spectrum in Avantel, a company that they mainly acquired months after Novator Partners, an investment fund behind the new operator, it will present its offer to enter the country.
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Nowadays, Claro has 31.2 million lines, which represents 46.9% of the total lines, Movistar accumulates 15.9 million and Tigo 11.8 million. The promise of the new operator is to energize the sector and benefit users with better prices. Before its launch, from Claro they indicated that they “welcome the competition” and that they will work to give their customers the best service.
Among the promises that WOM made, the 800 antennas that they plan to have by the end of 2020, the more than 1,000 jobs and the 8,000 antennas stand out for the next 4 years, with which they say they will connect 674 rural localities.
How will WOM start operating in the country, will Avantel users immediately become WOM users?
We announced our brand, WOM on Thursday, and we want to start communicating to 50 million Colombians in what we call the WOM style. We are still looking at the first quarter of 2021. But for now they are different companies, Everyone will decide which bet they like best, however Avantel’s customer service has improved significantly since we invested there.
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For the moment, until we see how the Avantel brand continues to function and we connect users with the Wom brand, they will continue to be separated so that they mix a little during the course of the year, which will depend on the customer base and how the customer base reacts to the Avantel brand as it begins to improve now that they are out of bankruptcy law.
Chris Bannister assures that they expect to have 8,000 antennas for the next 4 years.
How many users does Avantel have at the moment and what are the business expectations?
Avantel currently has about 800,000 users. And we honestly have to see how the brand behaves in the market. At the moment it is working well, but we must see how these two brands continue to evolve, both separately and together. We will judge that in the next three or four months.
(Also read: The journey of Avantel’s new largest shareholder in Colombia)
Regarding our expectations, We are currently investing $ 1 billion, so we want to get 25 percent of the market in the next four to five years. In Poland we get 28 percent. And in Chile, after 5 years, we get 23 percent of the market. So that 25 percent here is an affordable goal, considering how much money we are investing.
We must accept that Avantel did not behave in the best way in the Colombian market, but it was because they did not invest enough
According to studies, Colombia has one of the highest prices per Gigabyte on the continent, what other findings did you find in our market in these 10 months?
Chile had the highest price per gigabyte on July 7, 2015. And we have high expectations in Colombia because it currently has one of the highest prices. There is no doubt that a competitive market is being created and prices will fall, just as it happened in Poland and as it happened in Chile. That is what a competitive market will bring to Colombia. So We focus one of our largest investments in this country, because the market has been moved in reverse by the oligopoly and the three operators that are in a very comfortable position and are not bringing the necessary innovation.
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Our intention is to change all that by investing heavily in infrastructure and engaging consumers in a positive way.
Some say this is just a name change, how do you define the arrival of WOM?
We must accept that Avantel did not behave in the best way in the Colombian market, but it was because they did not invest enough. They only managed to have 800,000 users, that’s not even 2 percent of the market share. They did not change the market. But we are investing heavily in networks, we have many talented people working in the commercial area and also in customer service. So this is a completely different entry in strength, that’s important.
During the launch, WOM said that operators Claro, Tigo and Movistar were crying babies.
What were the challenges that you encountered in these 10 months prior to launch?
Making a great launch puts us face to face with different challenges; legal, regulation by the ‘dark side’. And it is that when there is a well-off, lazy market with great profits in three companies, they do not want competition. So they do everything to make it more difficult for us. Y The most common way to do it is to fight in the regulatory area, to fight in the legal area.
(Also: Claro spoke about the arrival of the new operator in Colombia)
That is what happens here. The truth is we always knew that this was going to happen. However, we said, we are confident that we will be able to handle Colombian regulations and the Colombian legal framework under the conditions in which we have done so in other countries where we operate. So we put our legal team on it. We provide you with the information that government institutions ask us for when they ask for it. But I must admit that the number of lawsuits here were more than we thought.
Although I think this happens because the market is so concentrated and gives so much money that the three who are there do not want inconvenience and want to leave everything as it is, so they spend it fighting.
How is the deployment of the infrastructure going to start operating?
Everything is on the right track. Normally, in Chile and Poland we had to build many of our antennas ourselves. But we have been lucky here. In Colombia there is something called ‘Clothes for towers’ and we can use goods from other companies and only put our base station on top. We have already signed contracts for 1,700 antennas so far which allows us to start deploying our infrastructure very quickly.
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This means that by the end of 2020 we expect to have deployed about 800 antennas that will be ready for operation. By the end of 2021, we expect to have 2,000 antennas already deployed. We have to adapt to the technical concepts that exist in Colombia, but we have already begun to invest in our data centers as well. We have three; two in Bogotá and one in Medellín, which represents an investment of 45 million dollars in the creation of the network.
The market has been moved in reverse by the oligopoly and the three operators that are in a very comfortable position and are not bringing the necessary innovation
With your arrival in the country, how many people do you plan to hire?
We currently have 1,200 people hired and this number will grow to 2,500. We have the most passionate and engaged workforce on LinkedIn in all of Latin America. And I have to say that the talent they have here in Colombia is very good. It’s amazing working with people who make things happen.
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How do you plan to captivate the Colombian user who is currently with another operator?
We spend good money on advertising, about 25 million dollars for the launch in the places we go. And I am a believer in the importance of advertising to hook customers. For example, in Chile we are the company that moves the most in social networks. You need to use these channels to be close to them. Something that I have learned in the time that I have been in the country is that each of the cities has its own personality, so we need to capture and communicate these different personalities and be very inclusive. Advertising, not only from telecommunications companies, but from all of them is very bland, everything is always boring, they don’t say anything, they don’t hook, they don’t make you feel anything.
Our corporate culture is very strong, we have values, we are brave, committed, passionate and honest, that is what guides all our decisions and it is what we want to share with everyone through our communication.
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With WOM, will you continue to use antennas from other rental operators to provide the service?
There is a part of the regulation in which operators must roam and lend their antennas to each other, not just us, that’s part of the regulation. We also have to do it with them, that is quite useful while we build our networks. The goal is 8,000 antennas and we are making rapid progress. In the next 4 years we hope to have these 8,000, which to give you an idea, is approximately the size of the network that Claro currently has.
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JUAN DAVID MORALES
Tecnósfera Newsroom
Twitter: @ juandamo07
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