Zain Communications, is among five nominees for the Best New Service Award, at this year’s World Communication Awards (WCA), slated for Wednesday, November 25, 2009 at the London Hilton. A list of finalists for WCA 2009, copied to the GNA, named Zain, Banglink (Bangladesh), British Telecom (BT), DotMobi, and TeliaSonera International as nominees for the prestigious Best New Service Award. Zain was the only telecom operator with operations in Ghana named among 49 global and emerging markets telecom giants, nominated in 15 competitive categories for this year, plus two industry voted categories – The User’s Choice and CEO of the Year. The World Communication Awards, organised by UK-based Emap Media, recognise the companies and individuals responsible for the innovations, achievements and great new services that are helping to build tomorrow’s industry. Zain won a place on the prestigious WCA list because it pioneered the first borderless network in the world; meaning that all Zain customers in the countries where Zain operates, can make and receive calls and SMS without roaming charges. Currently Zain, headquartered in Bahrain, has operations in 24 emerging market, including 17 African countries and seven in the Middle East. The company boasts of 69.5 million subscribers, out of which it said on its website, 63.54 million are active. First quarter reports on the wireless subscriptions in Ghana, indicated that, within months of its operations in Ghana, Zain chalked some 697,000 subscribers. Ahead of the release of the second quarter reports, the company celebrated its one millionth subscriber in Ghana. Zain’s rapid subscriber growth in Ghana was largely due to the success of its aggressive number pre-registration strategy, plus the “You Pay-Zain Pays” promotion, where subscribers got back every cedi they spent on Zain in the subsequent month. Coming into Ghana, Zain invested some US$420 million to build a technology that enable it to be the first to launch 3.5G services in the country. Mr Chris Gabriel, Group CEO for Africa, announced at the just ended Telecom World Africa Conference in Cape Town South Africa, that Zain’s corporate philosophy was about people, saying “we believe we are here to create customer experience and not just to build some fancy communication technology.” He said the core business for Zain was to give customers value for money, adding “at Zain we consider technology installation and other back office services as non-core and we are ready to outsource all that and concentrate on giving our customers the best communication experience.” The other WCA categories include Best Brand, Best Content Service, Best Customer Care, Best Managed Service, Best Mobile Service Provider, Best Operator in a Developing Market, under which Safaricom Kenya is a nominee, Best Project Management, and Best Technology Foresight. The rest are Best Device Strategy, Best Wholesale Carrier, Best Global Operator, Best Regional Operator, The Green Award (for Corporate Social and Environmental Responsibility), and Best Change-Maker. Source: GNA