Qubee to increase investment by up to $150 million

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

KARACHI: Qubee has planned to expand its advanced Internet technology to reach millions of customers in several new cities with the handsome investment of $150 million by end 2011, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Augere Holdings Alistair Johnston disclosed.

While briefing a group of journalists, he unveiled the future plans of Qubee, a 100 percent shareholder subsidiary of Augere – the plans will be executed in the on-going calendar year by the company. Alistair Johnston has designed a roadmap to reach millions of customers in developing countries including Pakistan with the broadband Internet technology in a short span of time.

With working experience of more than 12 years with different renowned telecom giants— Telefonica 02, Orange and Virgin Mobile, Alistair is leading Qubee to become the best selling service in Pakistan with the philosophy of “Broadband for All”. The expansion in operations will offer business ventures and employment opportunities to the local people in this highly advanced technology field, Johnston said.

He explained Qubee’s focus was developing countries, saying that broadband subscribers have been increasing in Pakistan and have crossed the one-million mark. The Pakistani market has terrific potential due to the fact of broadband penetration being very low whereas the larger population is set to adopt this technology in the future. “We are looking forward towards adding more professionals to our staff. The number of employees in the company will increase to 1,000 by year-end,” he said. Recounting the rapid growth of services and network of Qubee since its inception, Alistair said the broadband operator started its operations from Karachi with four sales centers situated in different areas, and now it has expanded its services to four cities with 45 customers’ care centers in the last year. Qubee has outlets at 27 different locations in Karachi. In Lahore, its outlets have been set up at 11 spots and the rest of the outlets were established in different areas of Islamabad and Rawalpindi. The network infrastructure has been widened significantly and now Qubee offers one of the lowest broadband rates in the country with uninterrupted connectivity and extensive download capacity, CMO Augere said.

The tariff starts from Rs 750 for 512 Mps with no activation charges. The services are currently available in four mega cities—Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi—with the growing number of customers onboard.

“The home users are our main customers though we have entered into different deals with academic institutes, small-sized business in Karachi,” he asserted.