Orange: Customer and Data Oriented Marketing in Africa and the Middle East

Orange is committed to making a difference in a highly competitive world. With its innovations, Orange has rapidly developed in the areas of smartphones and data, especially in Africa and the Middle East. ZTE Technologies recently interviewed Arnauld Blondet, vice president of Orange’s product marketing in Africa and the Middle East. He talked about Orange’s growth, challenges, marketing strategies, and relationship with ZTE.

A: Orange’s subscriber growth is mainly in Africa and the Middle East. Orange has a presence in more than 30 countries, nearly 20 of which are in Africa and the Middle East. This is where we have still room for new customers and equipment. This year, in Africa and the Middle East our smartphones and data really take off. Customers in Africa were still only using mobile for voice, and we saw a real shift in their usage patterns—from voice only to both voice and data.

A: The African and Middle East markets include 54 countries, and there are as many markets as countries. It’s very, very different from Europe. The African and Middle East markets are segmented; there are high-end and very low-end customers, so we can’t say that we have one market or one service or one kind of customer. We service very different markets, and we have a different position in each one. Ninety-five percent of our market is prepaid and very low ARPU—only from three to five dollars. There is also a high churn rate mainly due to the multi-SIM effect and volatility of the market. The African and Middle East markets are still mainly SIM only, and the Europe market is mainly device-subsidized. Africa and the Middle East are prepaid markets, and Europe is a postpaid market. Also, customers in Africa and the Middle East are only starting to use data whereas in Europe, the majority of the population uses data.

A: We have very strong competitors in Africa and the Middle East, including MTN, Etisalat, Vodafone and Airtel. These are usually multi-country operators with good knowledge of market specificities and needs. I think we all struggle to get the best value share through different positioning. Strategies and execution differ from one country to another and from one operator to another.
Orange’s target is really to differentiate customer experience and increase satisfaction. Our specific focus is on innovation. We have Technocentre in which we explore new services and innovations for Africa and the Middle East. We have one Technocentre in Amman, Jordan, and another in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire. These centers enable us to have local knowledge and work on new innovations for these markets.

A: We have many challenges—from the segmented nature of our value propositions to winning customers with new technology, which means we need to learn how to improve their usage of telecom technology. Our customers are still relatively young (inexperienced) in terms of telecom usage. They learn very early to make calls and use SMS; that is quite easy, but they are still not used to using mobile data and other services. So our marketing challenge is to help them learn how to use their phones more. The technology we present needs to look very easy to them. We are still improving the way we launch new services, and we need to continually learn about our customers and their demands.

A: Customer experience comes first at all the key touchpoints of the lives of our customers. We need to focus on it by creating value for customers throughout their life. We have three orientations. The first orientation is to innovate and always propose new services. We will launch an abundance of new services that stimulate usage. Then we target personalization and help the user find the right service at the right time. Of course, cost is also still very important in Africa and the Middle East. We view the customer as the head of all our processes—they are right there in the center, not at the periphery. In a word, we listen a lot to our customers, to understand their needs, and for this we need to define tools for better knowing and managing our customers.

A: It’s very ambitious. We look at our strategy in four key domains. The first is an open ecosystem and open innovation. We are opening our APIs for development of new services. The second is customer experience. We will improve customer experience during their lifetime. The third is core telecom business, which is about QoS, network-based solutions, and core services data. The last is new growth and expanding our territory. We look for new opportunities for growth. One good example in Africa is mobile money. We are very active with Orange money and have launched this in 14 countries.

A: We launch many new services each year and learn from all the markets, from all over the world, and define the right services for the upcoming roadmap. An example of what we’ve launched already is a range of Android apps in Africa and the Middle East. First is Libon, which is a VoIP app for voice and chat, like WeChat. Then we launched an app based on football because Africans are very fond of football, and Orange is a main sponsor of the African Cup of Nations. We have an app called Orange Football Club where we share football information and knowledge with football fans. Then we have an app for customer care called My Orange. This kind of app is launched in all of our branches now. And last, in the area of cloud services, we launched Orange Consumer Cloud, which is a cloud-based app for saving, sharing and storing content. 

A: I would say that the first goal is always customer satisfaction—anticipating and meeting their needs to make them happy. We will do it through new usage and services. We really want to create value for our customers. 

A: ZTE is of course a great partner in many areas for Orange. We are one hundred percent satisfied with ZTE. We are working with ZTE in two main areas of innovation: intelligent network and service delivery platform. Thanks to ZTE’s innovative technology and people, we think ZTE will continue to deliver robust services and innovation in the future.