Former Cell C CEO Lars Reichelt has taken the top job at Georgia’s largest telecommunications operator, MagtiCom. Reichelt, who left South Africa’s third mobile operator in July 2011, is now based in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi.
MagtiCom has about 2m customers and about 40% of the Georgian mobile market. “It’s very much a technology-led company but lost a little steam in recent years,” Reichelt tells TechCentral via Skype.
“It’s nice to be coming from a leading position for once,” he jokes.
According to the company’s website, MagtiCom, which was launched in 2007, is owned by two American firms, Tellcell Wireless LLC and Tellcell Cellular LLC. It is Georgia’s largest company.
In addition to mobile voice and broadband services, it also offers fixed-wireless products using CDMA technology and launched the country’s first direct-to-home satellite service, called MagtiSat, which was launched in January.
Reichelt, who was succeeded at Cell C by former Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig says his mandate is to make MagtiCom a more “customer-focused organisation”, stop it from losing market share to rivals and to become more of a “solutions platform rather than a simple connectivity provider”.
He says the company has two tough competitors in the form of TeliaSonera-owned Geocell, which also has about 40% of the Georgian mobile market, and VimpelCom-owned Beeline, which has a 20% market share.
Georgia, which is bordered by Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan, was occupied by the Russians in 1921 and became the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. It finally gained independence in 1991 and implemented economic and democratic reforms 12 years later that have laid the basis for growth. The country had a GDP per capita in 2011 of US$5 500, compared to South Africa’s $11 000. Its population is 4,5m strong.
On Cell C, Reichelt says Knott-Craig is right to be more aggressive in the market and was correct to reduce the company’s costs. “He’s continuing what I started and I think that’s the right thing,” Reichelt says.
However, he says Knott-Craig “probably overestimated the willingness of well-to-do customers to move to Cell C”.
“The ‘stickiness’ of South African consumers is almost legendary.” — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media
