Colombo’s third largest mobile operator Tigo, recently bought by UAE’s Emirates Telecommunication Corporation (ETC- Etisalat) from Millicom International Cellular, will be changing its name again, three years after Millicom changed its name from Celltel to Tigo, according to both Etisalat and Tigo sources.
“The Tigo name will be changed. ETC will probably rename Tigo as Etisalat, which is their service brand name,” an ETC source told the Sunday Times FT. The source said that this rebranding exercise will be done with a large investment, but declined to comment on how much.
He said that the company is also slated to launch its 3G (third generation) network early next year. “A top Etisalat team is slated to visit the island this month and will discuss the plans for Sri Lanka,” he said, adding that the team visiting Sri Lanka will discuss mobile services and brand name together with its corporate identity change.
A Tigo source said that ETC a day after completing the sale with Millicom settled all the bank loans of Tigo, but he declined to comment on the amount that was settled.
Analysts said that Tigo’s new parent with an estimated US$ 9.1 billion net assets and a US$ 3 billion net cash inflow from operations boasts of a US$ 3 billion cash and cash equivalents at the end of this financial year. “With a parent company with such deep pockets we can assume that the tariff structure for Tigo’s operations going forward may not meet much pressure in the initial stages and could focus on capturing market share with low tariff schemes,” an industry analyst noted. |
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