{"id":548923,"date":"2006-05-25T07:10:36","date_gmt":"2006-05-25T07:10:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/548923-interesting-time-for-a-reshuffle-at-cell-c.html"},"modified":"2006-05-25T07:10:36","modified_gmt":"2006-05-25T07:10:36","slug":"interesting-time-for-a-reshuffle-at-cell-c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/548923-interesting-time-for-a-reshuffle-at-cell-c.html","title":{"rendered":"Interesting time for a reshuffle at Cell C"},"content":{"rendered":"

The announcement that the post of chairman and CEO will be split, with American Jeffrey Hedberg taking over as CEO from Talaat Laham, who becomes nonexecutive chairman, comes as the Cell C group gears up to take advantage of the introduction of mobile number portability. <\/font><\/p>\n

On paper, Hedberg is the ideal candidate. Until recently, he was chairman and CEO of Deutsche Telekom (DT) USA and a member of the management board at DT in Germany. DT’s key asset is its mobile operator, T-Mobile USA, which has been an impressive performer. The subsidiary boasts more than 21m customers. <\/font><\/p>\n

T-Mobile USA has many similarities with Cell C. It is the smallest national operator in the US and, like Cell C, it competes on price and focuses on the youth market. <\/font><\/p>\n

Hedberg developed the strategy for DT’s international division and led the group’s takeover of American firms VoiceStream Wireless and Powertel in 2001, which were amalgamated to form T-Mobile USA the following year. <\/font><\/p>\n

Speaking to the FM from the US this week, Hedberg said number portability was one of the key factors that drove T-Mobile USA’s growth. He said he hoped it would have the same impact in SA. <\/font><\/p>\n

The premise behind number portability is simple. Customers are reluctant to switch operators because they will lose their phone number. Number portability makes it possible for them to retain their numbers. <\/font><\/p>\n

Hedberg is impressed by what he has seen of Cell C’s plans to take advantage of number portability, which should come into effect in September. <\/font><\/p>\n

He joins Cell C at another critical juncture for the company. Next month, its deal with Virgin Mobile gets off the ground. Virgin will compete with Cell C but use its network infrastructure. Hedberg thinks it is a "good thing" that Cell C is associating itself with the "powerful" Virgin brand. <\/font><\/p>\n

Hedberg has had many years of experience in the telecom industry. Before joining DT, he served as vice-president and management board member of Swisscom International, where he headed international operations at the Swiss telecom operator. Before that, he was an adviser to the telecom clients of auditing firm Coopers & Lybrand. <\/font><\/p>\n

With this experience, why is he joining Cell C? After all, with fewer than 3m customers, it is the smallest operator in a relatively small market. But Hedberg does not see it that way. "It’s an interesting company in an interesting market," he says. <\/font><\/p>\n

He won’t say what his plans are for Cell C. Instead, he repeats advice that he says his grandmother gave him: "Jeffrey, you must under promise and over-deliver." <\/font><\/p>\n

Hedberg’s job won’t be easy. He has to tackle MTN and Vodacom, which dominate the market. Cell C’s market share may be small – it has 10% – but it has started enjoying some successes. Its recorded earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation of R442m in the year to end-December are up from a R46,6m loss in the corresponding period. Revenue rose 34% to R5,5bn. It is carrying 80% of its calls on its own network and average revenue per user rose from R142 to R147. <\/font><\/p>\n

Inet-Bridge ||<\/em>\u00a0 <\/font>Discuss this article<\/font><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The changing of the guard at Cell C comes at a critical time for SA’s smallest and youngest mobile operator. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548923"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}