Lumitel wins 2 World Communication Awards. — Photo Viettel

Viettel’s subsidiary in Burundi, Lumitel, won the “Best operator in an emerging market” and “Best brand” awards at the 2016 World Communication Awards (WCA) held in Britain last month.

To win these awards, Lumitel had to overcome a challenge from international telecom companies like Orange (France), Telstra (Australia), Airtel (India), Ooredoo (Qatar) and Telkomsel (Indonesia).

Lumitel has invested in laying 3,000km of fibre-optic cable to cover all of Burundi’s 18 provinces, and the number of its base transceiver stations equals that of all four of its competitors put together.

One month after starting operations Lumitel became the second biggest player.

After one year the company was first with a 46 per cent market share and 1.5 million subscribers out a total population of 10 million.

Last October Lumitel had been recognised as the Most Successful New Enterprise of the Year, its first international award, by the International Business Awards – IBA Stevie Awards, after it built complete, high-quality infrastructure within a short time, used IT in sales, registered all smart phone users’ private information, and set up a distribution network covering remote areas.

For Viettel, this was the fifth “Best operator in an emerging market” award after its subsidiaries in Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos, and Timor Leste also won it.

The World Communication Awards were established in 1999 to recognise excellence amongst global telecom operators. They are open to all fixed and mobile operators and service providers who operate fully or partly in what is widely recognised as a developing market. — VNS