Starcomms hits 100,000

Reborn private telecom operator (PTO) Starcomms has recorded 100,000 subscribers on its network. The company in Lagos told journalists that its achievement makes it the first PTO to hit that mark in the largely underserved market of 130 million people. Starcomms claims pits it against Intercellular which made a similar claim in a release to announce its streaks of awards in the industry.  

Since 2002, Starcomms had been reengineered under new CEO Dirk Smet to become one of the country’s leading PTOs. It has demonstrated a large degree of versatility in advertising and marketing with huge investment in network expansion.

All has paid off within two years to stave off a rampaging onslaught from GSM operators and the aggressive push of new PTOs. The telco joined the turf in 1997 but by 2000, it was clear it was facing oblivion. When GSM came on the scene 2001, Starcomms erasure was no longer gradual but faster.

Market Secret

From the brink with a network in total rot as at 2002 connecting less than 5,000 subscribers, Starcomms bounced back to become one of the most visible players, particularly in Lagos where competition is most intense among telcos. There is coverage for Lagos and its low rent suburbs where most Lagosians live to escape the high rent of residential accommodation in Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Lekki. Practically all telcos including Starcomms before it was reborn concentrated in these areas in over six years that private telecom services were licensed by regulatory authorities.

“We are the people’s network,” said Smet, a Belgian with an African heritage that span several generations in the Congo. His African heritage may have influenced a marketing decision to take services to largely ignored areas of Lagos. You could hear Starcomms’ ringtones in backwater areas of Lagos and see its bill boards with pronounced Nigerian concepts in remote localities.

For the ignored areas, Smet uncovered a secret that GSM operators had discovered when they unrolled service: there was money in slums. The over 80 per cent of Lagosians who can’t find money to pay for office spaces or residential abodes in highbrow Victoria Island and other “Only-for-the-Rich’ areas had money to talk. And they talked. Since its Lagos success, the PTO has foraged into Kano and Maiduguri chasing after subscribers.

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