Page 80 - SAMENA Trends - October 2019

REGIONAL & MEMBERS UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Jazz, Afiniti to Enhance Customer Experience Using AI

Jazz, Pakistan’s leading digital Intelligence (AI) solutions in customer press release issued by the company. As
communications company, and Afiniti, a service contact centers across Pakistan, part of its long-term commitment to meet
multinational advanced analytics company, fostering significant gains in customer and exceed customer satisfaction, Jazz
have partnered to implement Artificial satisfaction and revenues, according to a engaged Afiniti to use their AI powered
contact center technology to optimize
call outcomes at Jazz’s customer service
contact centers. By analyzing call histories
and other CRM data, Afiniti’s algorithm
predicts patterns of interpersonal behavior
and matches callers with Jazz’s contact
center agents best equipped to serve
them. “Industries globally are advancing
rapidly thanks to AI and we wanted to
use this technology for the benefit of our
customers,” said Aamir Ibrahim, CEO Jazz.
“Afiniti is the world’s premier provider of
applied artificial intelligence solutions,
having delivered billions of dollars in
measurable economic value to its clients
around the world” said Zia Chishti, CEO
Afiniti.

PTCL Posts Double Digit Growth in Net Profit

Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the
country’s leading telecom and ICT services provider, has
announced its financial results for the nine months’ period ended
September 30, 2019 at its Board of Directors’ meeting held in
Islamabad on October 16, 2019. PTCL Group’s revenue for the nine
months has grown year-on-year (YoY) by 4.5% to Rs. 98 billion.
Ufone revenue has increased 6% YoY, UBank, a microfinance
banking subsidiary of PTCL, has shown significant growth of 50%
in its revenue over last year. PTCL Group’s operating profit and
net profit for the nine months have decreased by 15% and 32%
respectively as a result of high inflation, significant devaluation
of PKR against USD and higher power tariffs. PTCL revenue of
Rs. 53.8 billion for the nine months is slightly higher than last
year by 0.4%. PTCL’s flagship Fixed Broadband services posted data services. There is continued decline in voice revenues due to
revenue growth of 5%. PTCL continues its journey to upgrade its continued conversion of subscribers to OTT, cellular services and
top revenue generating exchanges under Network Transformation illegal/grey traffic termination resulting in declining voice traffic
Project (NTP) in different parts of Pakistan. For the 95 exchanges volumes. PTCL has posted a Net Profit after Tax of Rs. 5.5 billion
fully transformed to date in 12 cities, YoY revenue growth is even for the nine months which is 14% higher than same period of last
higher at 12% and there is a 35% reduction in customer complaints. year. Operating profit for the period remained under pressure
Fiber-To-The-Home (FTTH), deployed in major cities with more compared to last year mainly due to increase in operating cost
than 100,000 lines, has received a positive response from the on account of significant hike in power tariffs and currency
customers. Corporate, Wholesale and International businesses devaluation. However, non-operating income has increased
continued their growth momentum from 2018 and has achieved due to higher income on investments as a result of increase in
7% overall revenue growth. PTCL has entered into strategic interest rates and translation gain on forex based assets. VIS
partnership with a local telecom operator for its network expansion, Credit Rating Company Limited (VIS) has reaffirmed entity rating
with edotco to enhance Pakistan’s connectivity capabilities and of PTCL of “AAA” (Triple A) and short term rating of “A-1+” (A-One
Irdeto for Wi-Fi management and parental control functionalities. Plus). The medium to long-term rating of ‘AAA’ denotes highest
Wireless revenue for the period has declined on YoY basis due to credit quality, with negligible risk factors, being only slightly more
strong competition by the cellular companies providing wireless than for risk-free debt of Government of Pakistan. The assigned

80 OCTOBER 2019