Orbitel targets North African immigrants in bid to gain European foothold

Colombia's Orbitel is targeting immigrants moving into Europe from North Africa in a bid to establish its presence in the European wholesale market.

"In the first phase we are focused on traffic we can see moving from Europe back to northern countries in Africa, so Morocco, Senegal, Tunisia, Algeria and Nigeria," said Iñaki López Pelegrín, Orbitel's wholesale head of sales for Europe.

"We want to collect as much traffic as we can, and also terminate as much traffic as well... We want to find and follow the exodus of the people [into Europe] and logically North Africa is very close," he said to Total Telecom this week.

Pelegrín said Orbitel is also looking to attract more wholesale customers by offering a broader range of new and innovative services including VoIP.

He also explained how Orbitel is pursuing a broadly similar strategy in a bid to crack the Spanish retail mobile sector with its recently-launched MVNO, Orbitel Movil.

"Spain is one of the main destinations for immigrants from Colombia, because of the language mostly, and our brand is already very well known and trusted by them – we want to maintain that [in Spain]," said Pelegrín.

Orbitel also has operations in Miami for the same reason, he said.

Orbitel Movil launched in Spain this year on 15 September, and runs on Vodafone Spain's network. Pelegrín declined to provide subscriber numbers, but said the operation "is growing its market share and doing good things."

Meanwhile back in its domestic market, Orbitel's state-controlled rival Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Bogota (ETB) is due to select a new controlling partner next April – a sale that will bring with it a fresh injection of capital.

ETB originally planned to auction a controlling stake in the company in mid October; however, a court suspended a process after protests from a labour union that the sale would lead to massive layoffs. The process has since been given the go-ahead.

Pelegrín said he doesn't expect Orbitel to be affected by the move.

"We hope in Colombia our wholesale business won't be affected. We have a good relationship with our customers and so we're not afraid," he said.