(From left) Claro chief operating officer Colin Webster, commercial director Noel Esty and chief executive officer Alejandro Guiterrez together at an event to unveil the company's rebranding from 'MiPhone' to 'Claro', held at the Hilton Hotel in New Kingston yesterday. (Photo: Bryan Cummings)

It might not be the most opportune time to win over Jamaican consumers, what with their national football team meeting the Reggae Boyz at the 'Office' in Kingston for a crunch World Cup qualifying match on Saturday night, but Mexican mobile phone giant America Movil is hoping that their rebranding of MiPhone as 'Claro' will do just that.

Boasting improved network coverage and 3G (third generation) GSM technology, Claro is scheduled to launch next month, when the network will unveil its call rates, handsets and costs including the new 3G Apple iPhone, exclusive to the network in Jamaica. The brand will be represented islandwide at 200 stores and dealerships.

The existing MiPhone CDMA network will continue to service mobile customers and will also be used to provide a wireless fixed line service, having already acquired a licence from the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR).

Yesterday at the Hilton Hotel in New Kingston where the company presented the new brand - which America Movil uses elsewhere in Latin America and the Caribbean - Claro commercial director Noel Esty emphasised the scale of America Movil, whose 165.3 million mobile subscribers (as of the end of June) makes it the largest mobile provider in the Western hemisphere.

At one stage of Esty's presentation, Irish-owned Digicel with six million regional customers, (Digicel says this figure has now reached 6.5 million) and the British Cable & Wireless with five million were positioned at the unflattering end of a bar graph, well below America Movil.

"This is our footprint - we are in 17 countries across the region and in most of these countries we are number one or number two, so we are an aggressively competitive company. We are here to win!" said the former MiPhone marketing manager, who downplayed the effect of market saturation among a national population of 2.8 million.
"There is still room to give Jamaicans what they really want and that is value!"

He criticised the current level of competition, the cost of handsets and high inter-network call rates - the subject of a dispute between the then MiPhone and Digicel.
Claro has an ambitious three-year target of achieving the number one spot in the Jamaican mobile market but will be keenly aware that their self-described 'dead' MiPhone brand has handed over to Claro just 250,000 subscribers, compared to C&W with 660,000 and market leader Digicel with 1.9 million.

Expansion into other Caribbean markets is also being planned.

"Of course we plan to expand beyond Jamaica in time," Esty told Caribbean Business Report after the event. "Although we will not be using Jamaica as a base but entering into Caribbean territories on an individual basis."

He had said that the Claro network would have islandwide coverage amounting to those of Digicel and C&W combined. Claro will have in operation 600 cell sites islandwide by year-end as part of a total investment of US$250 million - including the US$70 million purchase of MiPhone parent company Oceanic Digital Jamaica Limited last November.

Several cell towers had been erected without planning permission, an issue which is being resolved, Esty reassured his audience.

He also promised a cheaper range of handsets, including exclusives other than the iPhone, as well as preferential calling rates to America Movil customers in other countries. Both Digicel and C&W also offer preferential rates for their respective customers calling within their 2G GSM networks in the Caribbean.

His presentation also included Claro print, radio and television advertisements which have begun appearing in the media under the tagline 'Geeez' - a play on the network's 3G technology.

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