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Dubai: UAE telecom du has amassed nearly a quarter-million mobile customers after launching its network six weeks ago, its CEO said yesterday.
Chief executive Osman Sultan told a roundtable discussion yesterday that almost 250,000 subscribers followed through out of the nearly 750,000 numbers reserved during the telecom's recent booking campaign.
"We're talking five per cent of the [UAE overall] population. That is an achievement," he said.
In a wide-ranging talk, Sultan acknowledged unexpected delays and service problems that have challenged the young company.
Out of these quarter-million paid customers, around 50,000 are still waiting to receive their SIM cards.
The cause of the delay has been a lack in capacity from du's two couriers. Aramex and Emirates Post have been making 3,000 daily deliveries instead of the 6,000 du originally expected, the CEO said. Deliveries were slowed further if the customer was away, he added.
Sultan also said some 100,000 customers were lost when they didn't complete the online booking application, many who later complained when they unsuccessfully tried to pick up their SIM cards.
Unclear online instructions were partly to blame, Sultan said. The company is trying to locate the majority of these customers who left contact details.
Activation delays also generated complaints, he said. A crush of requests nearly overloaded the company, after 120,000 paid accounts were logged and the contact centre received a quarter million phone in one week.
"We increased the capacity and now are back to a very normal lead time in activation," Sultan said.
Sultan said du now covers 80 per cent of the populated areas of the UAE, shy of the 85 per cent required under du's telecom licence provided by the TRA.
Going forward, the chief executive said du would offer etisalat customers another chance to reserve the numbers on du's 055 prefix later this month for those who didn't participate in the recent booking campaign.
Benefits: Clients save 10% due to per-second billing
du customers save up to 10 per cent on their monthly phone bill compared to etisalat due to its per-second billing, CEO Osman Sultan said yesterday.
"The per-second billing will defer the behaviour of talking for each customer. For some it will mean less, for some it will mean more," Sultan said. "We estimate that it's on average an eight to 10 per cent discount, it can go even higher."
etisalat recently said it would also offer per second billing, but a date has not yet been announced.
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