The telecom sector is growing rapidly and the telecom market has become very competitive these days. There are five GSM operators in the private sector along with CDMA while PTCL is in the public sector. In view of various attractive facilities offered by mobile service providers, it is essential for a new entrant in the market to deliver something of value, which all the cellular companies have not offered as yet. Warid Telecom endeavors to deliver better quality of services on attractive prices to consumers in order to become a market leader in the telecom sector.

Warid Telecom is currently building a base of satisfied customers who would help the company to expand further. The company also has the advantage of starting on a brand new network from day one. Warid has gained tremendous popularity among consumers because of offering new unique features for the first time such as zero line rent post paid, thirty-second billing, low and attractive international dialing rates, and friends and family services.

Speaking about the launch of Warid Telecom in the country, Mr Hamid stated that the company confidently feels it would create a difference by its superior service and innovative approach. Warid Telecom has objectives to create a quality network that is affordable, easy to use and transparent for consumers. Moreover, the company also plans to expand its services to every city and town of the country.

Currently, the company is operating in 28 cities of Asia along with major highways and motorways. It has one head and three regional offices, 13 sales and customers services centers in all prime locations, 150 franchises in the country, and a call center with 400 employees.

In response to a question about future expansion and access to rural districts, Mr Hamid stated that Warid Telecom is currently in the process of adding more than 40 cities to the company's network which would have the capacity to cater to about 1.8 million additional subscribers. In the next few months, the services of the company would reach over 100 cities with about 3.5 million subscribers. He further said that the company plans to reach most of the rural districts by the end of 2006.

With regards to capturing a large share of the telecom market, he said that his company plans to capture at least 30 per cent of the market share. Stating about the partnership with Ericsson, he said that the company has chosen Ericsson because it is the world's leading GSM supplier with almost 40 per cent market share and is also the world's most deployed mobile standards. Ericsson is helping Warid in professional services and in expanding the network. Furthermore, Warid had strategic alliance with Chimera Nokia dealers on prepaid connection, which would facilitate the customers in getting connection with mobile sets at affordable rates. In responding to a question as how much amount Warid has invested in the country, he said that the company has invested $291 million as license fee, and a total of $400 million as move up cost of phase I and phase II. Furthermore, he said that the company expects to increase the investment up to $1 billion in the next three years.

With regards to networking, he said that Warid's content service is the strongest in the market. Users can get news, headlines of the day, prayer timings, weather and finance updates, religion, games, multimedia downloads and a host of such services. Furthermore, Warid users have GPRS downloads in a most user-friendly environment. All this is very easy to use and most of the Warid customers are using these easy facilities.

Talking about the future prospects of telecom market, he gave the opinion that the Abu Dhabi Group felt the need to diversify their investment portfolio in the country due to huge potential in the telecom sector. The country has enormous potential with a low tele-density level, which is one of the reasons why the Abu Dhabi Group chose to diversify and invest in the telecom sector.