“They spoke longer than men but were more loyal customers”

By Anand Holla

Three years ago, when Ooredoo’s Iraqi operator Asiacell created the Almas (Diamond in Arabic) line to help women in Iraq stay connected with family, friends, and become financially and socially independent, it not only changed their lives but also redefined the limits of how mobile technology could usher spectacular change.

Eighteen months back, when Lawrence Yanovitch, President of the GSMA Mobile for Development Foundation, went to Iraq, he returned with newfound hope.

“It was wonderful to see how Ooredoo had followed through on a challenge that came from Hillary Clinton and Cherie Blair, as both had come together on what we saw was a global gender gap,” he says.

With more than 300 million women globally having less access to mobile phones than men, the challenge was to figure out how one gets the industry to think of women as a distinct market segment, whose needs are separate from men.

“It was interesting that Iraq was the country where you had the most fantastic example. This was discovered from a specific research on Iraqi women’s wants and needs, which found that they were afraid to own phones,” Yanovitch says.

The research showed that many women were loath to using cell phones mainly because of the risk of harassment from men, reluctance of visiting sales shops, ignorance about mobile telephony, and concerns from husbands.

“They also didn’t want to interact with male sales executives or speak with men from call centres over the phone,” Yanovitch says, “Also, their calling patterns were different. They spoke longer than men, but were more loyal customers.”

Heeding to all the issues thrown up by the research, Asiacell’s Almas introduced step charging (which offers 50% discount after the third minute), free “bye bye” service (which blocks potential harassers from calling or texting), and freedom for women to choose their off-peak hours, among other features.

“The whole idea was to look at women as an important force in Iraqi society. Giving them access to connectivity changed their lives. Today, Asiacell has increased female subscribers in Iraq by more than 2 million,” he says.

At the 2013 GSMA Mobile World Congress, the Almas service won the GSMA mWomen Best Mobile Product or Service for Women in Emerging Markets. “When I spoke with women there, it was very moving to know what it was like for them before, and now, when they were able to communicate,” Yanovitch says.

Amazingly, the same model was replicated in Indonesia to achieve the same dramatic results. “Again, 2 million customers,” he says, and smiles.

The GSMA Foundation, which was created for the purpose of developing and promoting projects that utilise mobile communications to relieve the poor, the distressed, and the under-privileged, is now using those lessons to remodel this plan in Africa as well.

“Ours is a network of more than 800 phone companies and there are more than 3.4 billion subscribers on this network. We have seen a rapid growth of mobile penetration. It is changing people’s lives around the planet in different ways depending on the stage of the country’s development,” Yanovitch points out.

While the GSMA Mobile for Development Foundation unites the mobile industry and the international development community in giving flight to commercial business models in health, education, banking, and women’s empowerment, there is a larger purpose as well.

“And that is to get the countries’ governments, civil society and the mobile industry to come together to help realise the potential for humanity. Around the world, as mobile phones become more and more available, they are also facilitating new innovations to bring various services, not just communications,” Yanovitch says.

In Africa, for instance, it’s likely that most of the subscribers’ first experience of the Internet will be through the mobile phone, believes Yanovitch. “Once you have access to information and communication, there are a lot more possibilities for people who are offered modern infrastructure, such as access to banking services,” he says.

In the 20^th century, as banking has become more expensive, half of the world’s population still awaits access to this essential economic tool.

“But when you bring mobile phones to the equation, you can really reduce the costs. Ooredoo has been a leader in all these fronts,” Yanovitch points out, “Companies like Etisalat and Axiata are also making remarkable progress.”

Apart from communications, mobiles are a boon for health care, he feels. “In Africa, there’s a very high incidence of infant mortality at the time of birth. Many women are attended by mid-wives and live very far from hospitals. Etisalat has launched a programme called Mobile Baby, which equips mid-wives with connectivity that permits them to know the consumer and also the doctors, and simplify the process,” Yanovitch says.

Working at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and having a successful career in microfinance and philanthropy helped Yanovitch learn a lot about women’s aspirations.

“I noticed that women are really focused on their children and getting them educated. When you increase women’s income, we see that the survival rates of children go up, and women are able to educate them better. Women should have access to all the economic opportunities that men have. Mobile is a vital tool now in our society to do this,” he explains.

Interestingly, the innovations on empowering women are coming from the Middle East. Yanovitch says, “I feel a lot of it has to do with Ooredoo and its leadership. Ooredoo Group chairman HE Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani was recently appointed to the World Bank Group Advisory Council on Gender and Development. He is focused on putting women in leadership positions.”

Under Ooredoo’s leadership, Yanovtich believes Qatar is able to lead the rest of the world in this movement. “You can think of countries going through three stages of evolution. The first is the country getting access to connectivity, which we see in certain African countries. The second is building mobile payment systems,” he continues.

“The third stage could be called the opportunity for digital entrepreneurship. I think Qatar has the biggest opportunity around the youth, and it can be a leader on innovating new business models through digital technology.”

“Ooredoo, Etisalat and other big players have come together on a shared infrastructure initiative to bring mobile connectivity to real communities who don’t have it, and ultimately offer access to Internet and drive down the costs,” Yanovitch says, “That will be a huge initiative.”

Given how critical deeper penetration of mobile broadband is, getting governments and the operator community to work together to put that infrastructure in place is essential. “Then, smart phone access will follow and people will have computers in their hands,” Yanovitch says.

In the GSMA Foundation success story, the flourishing of mobile payments dynamic has been another milestone. “Kenya was one of the first innovators in mobile payments. Today, there are many more people in Kenya who have a mobile money account than a bank account,” he says.

Kenya focused on building infrastructure, and creating policies and incentives around licensing and taxation so as to introduce mobile broadband, Yanovitch points out.

However, despite meeting with tremendous success in Kenya, other countries took long to adopt it. “It’s a tough programme to implement. One of the issues is to convince Central Banks about the safety and soundness of these services. We also have a programme where we engage in a dialogue with central banks to assure the security of the operations.”

Then there are the ever-looming threats of fraud and money-laundering to tackle. “Perhaps, the biggest challenge is in knowing who the customer is. But in many countries where we work, people have no documentation,” shares Yanovitch. In Tanzania, for instance, 95 % of the population doesn’t have a birth certificate.

It is in understanding and resolving such roadblocks together that seems to be the driving force behind the continual rise of the mobile industry.

Yanovitch says, “Globally, the mobile industry has grown phenomenally because it has focused on the wants and needs of the low-income population, the ones who were not included. And that’s the essence of brands like Ooredoo. As we saw in Iraq, they addressed the wants and needs of Iraqi women, focused on satisfying them, and then delivered.”