Frost & Sullivan applauds Movitel for extending mobile to rural Mozambique:

Based on its recent research on the mobile communications market, Frost & Sullivan has presented Movitel with the 2013 Mozambican Frost & Sullivan Award for Competitive Strategy Leadership.

Movitel has turned mobile communication into a basic need in the lower living standard measure (LSM) population groups by making its services widely accessible and affordable. Its unique strategy of investing in large, greenfield networks to cover the entire country, including rural and remote areas of Mozambique, will lead to sustainable social development. This will not only benefit the community, but also widen Movitel's customer base.

Mozambique has a vast geographic area with low population density, which requires high investment and an intricate roll out of network infrastructure, especially in the rural areas. While competing telecom service providers prefer to focus on urban areas, Movitel has built 2,500 2G/3G base stations and deployed 20,000 km of fibre optical cables, enabling it to cover 100 percent of Mozambique's districts and highways, and in the process, serve nearly 80 percent of the total population.

Movitel gained a competitive advantage by signing an agreement with Electricidade the Mocambique (EDM), the national power company, which facilitated rapid network deployment across the country. Movitel also demonstrated a willingness to cooperate with any partner, including other operators, to share infrastructure and build networks.

Within one year of commencing commercial operations in Mozambique, Movitel was able to garner two million subscribers, which translates to 20 percent of the market share, by the end of 2012. In order to reach more customers in the rural areas, the company built a strong supply chain to sell its services door-to-door, thereby creating 20,000 jobs for sales agents. Additionally, it introduced preferential free packages that include free subscription charges, monthly bonus accounts, and infinite calls. Lastly, Movitel provided free internet to 2,500 schools nationwide.