Digicel made its name and fortune in the Caribbean. Then it became a major regional player in the Pacific. Now it is hoping to land a license in Myanmar, a much larger market than the ones its operates in. Interestingly, they are pushing for an enabling framework for mobile money, even ahead of getting the telecom license: “The telecommunications sector offers many opportunities, and companies can provide a variety of services in this industry,” said Lorna J. McPherson, the operations director of the Irish-owned Myanmar Digicel Company.
Some countries chafe at the fact that their largest investor, employer and/or tax payer is foreign. In many developing countries, this is a mobile operator who came in under the radar to a small and unimportant sector and by growing rapidly became the largest entity before the nationalists could stop them. Such was the case with Digicel in Haiti. But according to a report, it looks like win-win for the company and the country and for the rest of us too, because Digicel seems to be pioneering a new model for managing disaster recovery. Digicel, on the other hand, is the country’s largest employer and taxpayer.