For the year ended March 31, 2005, revenue declined by five per cent, from $23.5 billion to $22.2 billion.

However, the company considered the year just passed as one of stabilisation, and the year to come, the start of a period of sustained growth.

Speaking at C&W's Investor Forum at the Hilton Hotel in St. Andrew yesterday, President Jacqueline Holding and Chief Financial Officer Andrew Cherry spoke positively about the prospects for the company going forward.

Ms. Holding first gave the good news.  "A dividend of six cents per share, or a total of $1 billion, has been recommended by the board and will be tabled for approval by shareholders at the annual general meeting in August."

While the company experienced serious competition, they were able to manage their internal costs well.  First, it was able to convert the dividends payable to the parent company, British-based C&W Plc, and other foreign currency denominated debts, into interest-free Jamaican dollar inter-company loans.

According to Mr. Cherry, this year forward, the loans will attract interest as the transformation costs (redundancies and fixed asset impairments) have been eliminated.

And for the future, C&W will look to two segments of the business for growth ­ the mobile and the broadband market.

With two-thirds of the Jamaican population owning at least one cellular phone, the challenge now is to grow the revenue per handset.  However, keeping and growing the landline market must be balanced out as well.  Ms. Holding did admit, "In growing our mobile network, we may have dropped the ball on our landline customers."

The company has had to book $600 million of their revenue decline to higher than usual line rental rebates.  Hence, the company embarked on its Homefone campaign to remind consumers of the benefits of a landline.

The results were mixed.

According to Mr. Cherry, for the 2004/2005 year, the company had a 10 per cent growth in the number of its mobile customers.

On the flip side, Mr. Cherry said, "There was a 10 per cent reduction in the number of fixed line customers during the first half of the year as residential customers substituted their fixed line for a pre paid mobile phone."

Yet, due to the launch of the Homefone rebranding campaign in the latter part of 2004, Mr. Cherry notes that the rate of attrition stabilised.  Still, the company experienced fixed line revenue decrease by $1.6 billion from the prior year.

The company did reveal however, that their intense focus would be on the lucrative mobile market.  The focus has now shifted from focusing on the cost of mobile phone acquisition to the cost of mobile phone ownership.  Jamaicans are talkers and C&W wants the lion's share of that chat dollar.

Ms. Holding says that, "There has been an exponential growth in the mobile market due to the generous subsidy of handsets to the tune between $1 and $2 billion.  We will no longer subsidise phones but instead focus those dollars on restoring the profitability of our Mobile business.  We are confident of driving higher usage of value added services on our mobile service."

And although Ms. Holding said that the company would continue to take care of their landline customers, especially the corporate ones, the company will seek to build on the broadband market.

"We want to have 50,000 Jamaican households on broadband by the end of our fiscal year."

Mr. Cherry indicated that there were already 9,500 broadband users in place and this was "a three fold increase in six months."

Ms. Holding said the target was achievable for several reasons.  "Market research has shown that 100,000 out of 750,000 households in Jamaica have computers.  And with the Government's push to get the Internet in schools, children will want the same access at home.  And broadband is addictive.  It is so fast that persons can't go back to dial up access after experiencing broadband."

And so with the two growth areas firmly in their sight, the C&W executives are confident that they will move forward into a period of growth.

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