It’s been a long road, but FLOW has been recapturing more of the Jamaican market from its competitor Digicel in the cellular market while holding onto its market leadership in other areas.

The company has more than doubled its share on the mobile side, Stephen Price, managing director of FLOW, told the Jamaica Observer in a recent interview.

While Digicel is still the largest player in that market, FLOW is the clear market leader in its other segments, including the internet market, cable TV market and the landline market, Price told the Caribean Business Report.

The success in mobile has come about via FLOW’s strategy on differentiating itself on price, trying to offer more value for money than its competitor.

“We decided we were going to be the value provider in the market,” Price said.

Meanwhile, growth in data continues to grow, as does the number of smartphones on the market — “55 per cent of our customers have data phones,” Price said.

The company has shed much of its image as the staid monopoly that it once was, and is now staffed by people who may have little memory of the days before mobile phones. Of the company’s employees “65 per cent are millenials or linksters”, Price said – referring to the generations which were born later than 1979.

“This is not the FLOW of old. This a new FLOW with a resurgent group of employees,” Price said.

The telecoms sector is fast moving, with Jamaicans always wanting the latest technology, which means that Price cannot only look at the local market for his competitors.

“My competitors are not traditional competitors,” Price said. “My biggest competitors are in garages in Silicon Valley and India.” From there could come the next WhatsApp, which many Jamaican currently use for phone calls, video calls and text messaging.

Like Digicel, the company is not a supporter of the idea of net neutrality, or devices which allow users to watch cable TV for free. The Amazon Fire stick and similar devices “don’t pay for broadcasting rights here,” Price noted. “All are illegal and unlicensed in this territory. We will look to see how we can restrict that traffic.”

On the cable side, FLOW “hopes to be free of unlicensed content by the end of the year”, Price said. But the company also hopes to replace any channels lost with similar ones, as has been the policy. Over the past year the company has removed and replaced 32 channels, he observed.

“But the challenge is we are looked at as one block,” along with Latin America. As a result, Jamaica may often get the Latin feed, designed for a Spanish-speaking audience. “Our people don’t want to listen to ‘habla-habla’,” Price noted.