Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (00:08):
We're in Barcelona. It's MWC26. I'm here with Aamir Ibrahim, who's the CEO at Jazz. Aamir, tell us about Jazz. How many customers do you have and what kind of services are popular with your customer base?

Aamir Ibrahim, Jazz (00:21):
Okay. We recently evolved to becoming Jazz World, which basically reflects our growing ambition. So rather than being a monolithic telecom operator, from the past, we are a more dynamic, diversified digital services company. And we go under the banner and the ambition of AI 1440. What it means is that rather being relevant to the customer for only 30 minutes of communication needs, we want to be relevant to the customers 1,440 minutes of the day. So we have expanded our horizons and it's not just branding. Over the last few years, we have evolved from being a telecom company to being a bank, to being a FinTech. Now we're into insurance and entertainment, gaming, and now health tech also. So we serve more than a hundred million customers in Pakistan across our different platforms. And we're the largest digital services infrastructure provider in the country.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (01:17):
Okay. Well, fantastic. I mean, this is exactly the kind of company that we're interested in. The digital service provider is something that Telecom TV has been focused on for years. And you're part of the Vayon group as well. And we know that the digital service is really important to Vayon. And now what kind of services do you offer via Jazz cash? And what kind of competition do you face in the digital finance services sector in Pakistan?

Aamir Ibrahim, Jazz (01:45):
So in Pakistan, like many other frontier markets, everybody has a mobile phone, but very few people have a bank account. So this was the gap that we decided to fill. And it's not uncommon that people have leapfrogged in certain environments. Most of Africa have gotten their first flavor of banking through a mobile phone. So like mobile banking or phone banking became the popular thing. Now, what we are offering from Jazz Cash was the starting use cases, which was utilitable payments and domestic remittances, but it has evolved from there to all the way looking at more sophisticated products like financial wellbeing, insurance, crypto. But more than half of our revenue is now coming from lending. So we issue more than 200,000 loans a day for productive lending. And these are all micro and nano loans up to about 20 or $30 with a duration of about four weeks.

(02:39):
So we actually provide instant credit to people who have been deprived of credit. So we're a full-fledged financial services provider, everything from lending to payments to a wallet and a bank account.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (02:51):
Okay, fantastic. Now, this is obviously great for the consumer and really important for the economy as well, but this is a really sophisticated operation. What are the key technologies that underpin JazzCash and what do you need to get absolutely right to ensure and secure these vital services?

Aamir Ibrahim, Jazz (03:13):
Well, I've been talking a lot about trust at this mobile world Congress. You have obviously technology which gives you capability. You have transparency, which gives you credibility, but then you have trust that gives you longevity, and that's really important. So trust is that invisible layer on which the whole fancy edifice resides, and it's like Oxygen. You only miss it when it starts getting thin. And for ensuring that our customers trust it with their data, with their financial transactions, we have to be super sophisticated in terms of using all the technologies that we have today from advanced fraud management to using AI where there is a near real-time intervention about seeing patterns that we can identify before a bad event happens. And then secondly, when something does happen, how well and how quickly do you respond to a customer who has been affected and you don't hide behind the policy, you stand beside the person who has been negatively affected.

(04:08):
That's your customer. But in terms of technology, obviously there is a huge buzz around AI and the capabilities of AI. And I think what we have to do as operators, as facilitators of businesses is to convert technological jargon into customer benefit.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (04:26):
No, absolutely. And we're starting to see the signs of that across the industry. But as usual, it's the innovators I think in digital services who may be using some of these technologies for a while that are showing the way and giving great examples. Now, another key service to your portfolio is your streaming service, Tamasha. I hope I've pronounced that correctly. What kind of technology is key to delivering that because that obviously has different dynamics associated to it. And how can your network deal with the demand during peak events such as Pakistan cricket matches? Yeah.

Aamir Ibrahim, Jazz (05:06):
Well, Tamasha is a video streaming platform. As I mentioned right at the beginning, we are evolving from being just a simple telecom company to being a digital services operator. So we want to engage with the customer 1,440 minutes of the day. Most of the customers around the world, they use video more than half of the time that they're actually on a mobile phone. And Pakistan, like many other environments, people are entertainment staffed, or at least they want to watch television or video while on the go. So Tamasha is our OGT platform. It's got both subscription model as well as over the year free television channels that you can watch. More than 30 million customers watch Tamasha on a monthly basis with us. Wow. And of course, we have to create technologies or we have to rely on technologies which are scalable. So when there is a peak event like a cricket match, we have a concurrency of about six million customers who are simultaneously watching the game on that particular moment.

(06:07):
And we work with hyperscalers at the back so that we can offer the same service at the same speed rather than a buffing circle that many people see when there is a peak load. So yeah, it's been a great experience. We've been offering this for the last two years and we've been growing very confidently in this thing. The Pakistani people, like many other people around the world are looking for entertainment, looking for distractions these days.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (06:32):
Right, absolutely. And always looking at live sport, you can see it now evolving on so many different platforms. It's a real attraction, but one of the toughest things to get right and real time is really key there. So a really interesting portfolio of services that Jazz has, but what comes next for the company and indeed for the whole ecosystem in Pakistan?

Aamir Ibrahim, Jazz (06:59):
Next week when I go back to Pakistan, we have the 5G option. So I think we've been deliberate and intentional about delaying 5G in Pakistan. And there's a certain inflection point when you have more than 50, 60% smartphone penetration. I think that's the right time. And I think the industry has also evolved rather than just relying on the hype of 5G. I think now there is genuine use cases that we can benefit from. So going back, I'll be busy with the 5G auction, and I think this time the conditions for the auction are very reasonable. We're highly happy about how it has been framed. We look to aggressively participate in that. That's going to be a good thing, not just for us, but for the industry in Pakistan. So that is certainly building on the traditional telecom side. But I think where my greater excitement comes from some of the things that we've talked about earlier is the financial services, it's entertainment.

(07:53):
We're stepping into em-commerce, into health. So those new areas, I think, where we're offering digital services is the real excitement point for me. And certainly having a robust digital infrastructure at the back of expansive, reliable broadband is really important. And we intend to provide that broadband layer through better and better services like the one that 5G will offer.

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (08:19):
Absolutely. Well, sounds like you've got a really ... I mean, it's not just important year going back to one of a key milestone in the industry sector next week. So good luck with that. Telecom TV will be watching that process closely and reporting on it and look forward to catching up maybe later this year, find out how that went and what it has meant for Jazz. So

Aamir Ibrahim, Jazz (08:42):
Aamir,

Ray Le Maistre, TelecomTV (08:42):
Great to talk to you. Thanks very much for coming to chat with me for having me over here. Thanks you. Thank you.