Ooredoo Maldives formerly known as Wataniya Telecom Maldives is part of the multinational Ooredoo Group It launched its services in the Maldives on the 1st of August 2005.

The international telecommunications company headquartered in Doha, Qatar revolutionized the telecommunication industry of the Maldives in less than a decade of its inception in the country by providing leading edge technologies and telecommunication solutions nationwide and made telecom services more affordable to all

 Ooredoo is notably one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies, with a customer base of over 138 Million spread across 10 countries as at December 31, 2016.

The Island Chief is privileged to have had the opportunity to meet with Mr.Najib Khan, CEO of Ooredoo Maldives who shares his visions for the future of telecommunication and services.

We ask Mr. Najib to start us off by telling us about how he first ventured into the field.He explains that he has always been a telecommunication professional, even from his early days.

"Someone advised me way back in 1991 that telecommunication will be a sunrise industry, and I believed in it. This is my fourth company and throughout I have been in telecommunication, at organizations like Alcatel. I was in Airtel while I was in India and then I joined Ooredoo, in Qatar, at the group office."

As he briefly explained his career highlights, he continued to explain why he loves telecommunication.

"I love telecommunication. It is something the world is no longer possible without. If you don't connect, you don't have your application and the basis of our business fundamentals will break down. It would no longer be an exaggeration to say that communication services are on par with food, water and electricity. Thats how I describe it."

Mr. Najib went on to share his experiences with technology and conveyed how he has seen the before and after of what technology has to offer.

"In the past we used to have telex machines, Fax machines and now everything is digital. I am privileged to see the differences from the Gen Y and the millennials that came after and the difference in behavior. But fundamentally all of this revolves around great telecommunication networks, and on-top of that the applications enabled through software."

"I have played various roles in the industry ranging from sales, customer service, marketing, project roles and general management roles. For me, the Maldives is a great opportunity because I believe it has the potential to be a center of excellence for technological innovations. This market offers a freedom to try new technologies which can benefit the community. The success of such innovations can then be replicated in other parts of the world. The stakes therefore are that if you do well in a small geography you can take it to other parts of the world."

After hearing about Ooredoos positioning in the Maldives, we asked Mr. Najib to elaborate tell us about how the strength of a countrys telecommunication company helps to boost its economy.

"If you look at some of the trends and indices worldwide, wherever the penetration of telecommunication network services are extremely good, where say broadband penetration is about 50 to 60% and the telecommunication network is at more than100% of the population - the economic indices of those countries have done well. There is a direct relationship between the GDP and broadband penetration."

"Having said that, this means if you are connected well, you are able to access the internet for information and engage with commerce. So, I believe this allows more contribution to the GDP as more commerce gets generated. More importantly I think it will also help the community to be much more informed and give access to what is happening around the world irrespective of where they are."

Having learned quite a bit about the importance of a strong telecommunication company, we went on to further question the sort of technological improvements that Ooredoo plans to bring forth into our country. Mr. Najib Khan explained with much enthusiasm that a mobile company has always used its wireless technology. This is a mobile first generation.

"If you see we first launched our services with 2G and then deployed 3G and now we have covered the Maldives with 4G and 4G+. New technologies will emerge and we will definitely bring them to Maldives as well. The next launch in mobile technology will be e 5G. What happens with this continuum is that it enables different services. For example, 4G is a good technology for a great video experience. Today Video is the most used application amongst consumers and 4G enables this. It also enables real time video conferencing in HD quality stream videos in HD quality. However this is now becoming traditional and business as usual. 5G will enable very high volumes of small data especially in the Internet of things (IoT) applications which is about connecting things beyond human beings.

"Whats more interesting is that the digital world is pushing us to transform from a telecom company to a digital lifestyle provider company. Ultimately, all this should benefit the community. Therefore under our Digital Maldives focus we play a role of a catalyst to enable digital interactions with the market and our employees. Customers, today for example, are able to use our digital platform called Ooredoo Next on Facebook messenger to connect with us to enquire about their balances, buy new products or to explore new promotions instead of reaching us in the traditional old way via call center and wait for services."

"We find that an astonishing 70- 75% of data traffic is directed towards Facebook and other social media. If our consumers are spending their time on social media, then cant we make our services available there? Ooredoo Next is an artificial intelligence and machine learning based platform which empowers the customer to interact digitally."

As we approached the end of our conversation, we had to ask about the decision behind Ooredoo going public and listing itself on the Maldivian stock exchange.

"I think more than just a license condition, we wanted to give the Maldivian community an opportunity to be part of this growth journey in Ooredoo Maldives. We therefore sweated it out to bring in many retail customers to be a part of our company. We truly believe that we are a Maldivian company and work hard for the betterment of the community through innovations in technological solutions.  The IPO is a good example of our mission to enrich lives of the community by sharing our growth with everyone"

"This was the largest IPO in the region. In fact, more than 8,000 retail customers bought shares. With a yield of 421 million MVR, it became the highest valued IPO in the country. The reason we did this was not because we had a need for cash, but we wanted this company to be something that the people in this country will be proud of."

The "Ooredoo" brand has been valued at USD 3.1 Billion and recognized amongst the worlds top fifty most valuable telecommunications brand by the leading intangible asset valuation consultancy, Brand Finance, in their "Telecoms 500 2017" report published on February 27, 2017.