Antti Arponen , CEO of FRiENDi Oman, one of the mobile virtual network operators which recently launched its operations in the Sultanate, says the highlight of his company’s services is affordable charges with special emphasis on users who make international calls. FRiENDi offers customer service in six languages; Arabic, English, Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali. Arponen is hopeful that the demand for mobile services will only grow in Oman in the future. Excerpts from an exclusive interview to Oman Vistas.

Friendi has entered Oman, after OmanMobile and Nawras which are already established in the market. So what is Frendi’s value proposition?

As a company and people, we welcome all nationalities with equal respect. As a product, FRiENDi mobile is an easy to use, affordable package, with special emphasis on the people who have international calling and text messaging needs.

For customers, FRiENDi mobile offers Customer Service in six languages, Malayalam, Hindi, Urdu and Bengali in addition to Arabic and English. The services are relevant. FRiENDi mobile gives you everything you need, and nothing you don’t need. With FRiENDi mobile people do not pay for something they don’t use or need.

How will the customer benefit?

While FRiENDi mobile’s international prices are very attractive, there are also other practical benefits.

For instance, before FRiENDi mobile came to Oman, people had to find the mobile provider’s showroom and queue up there. With FRiENDi mobile, you can go to any of the 1,000 outlets where FRiENDi mobile Starter Packs are availTelecomable. For recharge cards, you can walk into almost any shop and they have it. Examples are Omanoil, Shell, Al Maha, Turtles, Al Fair, Safeer, Lulu, Khimji Mart, Foto Magic, and so on.

Is the Oman market mature enough for so many different service providers?
Absolutely. For the past 4 years there has been only one-size-fits-all offerings and providers, and based on the huge popularity of FRiENDi mobile, we now can say for a fact that people were desperately in need of an alternative.

Are you targeting first time customers or those who are already using the services of other mobile operators in the market?

We do not target people based on what they may or may not have done in their past. We offer a product with certain pricing, and a great customer service in six languages, and 1,000 locations where to find us, and that has been an attractive package to tens of thousands of people in Oman. To us, every person is a new customer. However, we don’t really like term “customer”, we prefer to use term “user” since that what people do; they use. No person fundamentally benefits from being a customer as such.

How much market share do you expect to have at the end of the first year?

We rather focus on delivering great experience to the FRiENDi mobile users than trying to reach a certain numeric figure in industry statistics. However, it is worth noting that even if the customer demand greatly exceeds our wildest dreams, there will be no capacity or quality issues, and we will be able to offer same great call and customer service quality. Our existing technology is capable of handling 3 million customers, and it’s very simple to scaleup if needed, so we can comfortably say there is no limit for Oman.

Do you see mergers of mobile companies happening in the coming future with the advent of newer players?

Based of FRiENDi mobile’s popularity, it is clear that people have been waiting for alternatives to the existing providers. There is no sign of this demand to decrease, in fact, I think now that people know they do not have to stay with their existing providers, the demand will only grow. As long as the demand is there, it is difficult to see major benefits of merging different providers.