Colm Delves, chief executive officer of Digicel Group.

Digicel, the Jamaica-based telecoms operator that has enjoyed galloping growth across the Caribbean since its launch seven years ago, says it will stay close to core business of service delivery rather than venture into the area of content developmentor media ownership.

"No, absolutely not," said Colm Delves, the CEO of Digicel Group, when asked this week about the possibility of the company buying into Caribbean media the leverage its strength in to region and the expansion of conversion technologies.

"We know what we are good at, and we don't want to stretch ourselves too thin," Delve told journalists at a luncheon to introduce the head of the group's Jamaican operation, David Hunter.

Hunter, the former head of Digicel Bermuda, has replaced who is taking over as CEO as Digicel Northern Caribbean, a new umbrella for the company's operation in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.

While Digicel's Caribbean mangers say the firm has no aspirations towards media, in Ireland, their boss, Digicel's owner, Dennis O'Brien is in a scuffle for the take-over of the media group, Independent News and Media. There is, however, no evidence of a strategic plan by O'Brien to link the two if he is successful in acquiring Independent.

Digicel began rolling out its services in 2001, after Irishman O'Brien paid US$45 million to acquire a mobile telephone licence in Jamaica, which was liberalising its market to end decades of monopoly by the British company, Cable & Wireless.

Digicel, which in incorporated in Bermuda, now operates in 23 Caribbean markets, while OBrien has also ventured into the Pacific region and Central America.

Digicel says it has nearly six million subscribers in the Caribbean and for its financial year, to the end of March 2007 reported revenue of over US$1.1 billion. It projected revenue for the year just ended to reach close to US$1.5 billion.

Growth

Delves insisted that there was still opportunity to extract growth for its services from Caribbean markets.

"We still have growth potential ... in voice, WiMAX and broadband," he said, "Where the growth is going to come is from consolidating and the addition of services."

In fact, Digicel has the kind of problem that most Caribbean businesses would enviably embrace. "The slow growth market (Jamaica) is in the low teens."

In less-mature markets, Digicel subscriber base has, in some cases, been doubling and tripling, often, as in the case of Haiti, defying the possibilities of official economic data. "In Haiti, the average spend is 35 per cent of gross national income, and it just doesn't make sense," Delves said.

While not wanting to itself become the content provider, Delves made it clear that Digicel was fully aware that lifestyle demands would increasingly impact on the shape of the wireless telecommunications services it provides.

"We will be a facilitator," he said, "We are not seeking to take over media but we are always looking for partnerships."

business@gleanerjm.com

Billionaire investor Denis O'Brien has been labelled a 'dissident shareholder' by Independent News & Media Plc, a company in which he has a 21 per cent stake. - File