In relation to the above headline we found the extract below from a recently published article very telling. Leave your comments below.

“Despite the recent financial haemorrhaging, it is hoped that its parent company in London will give Dehring and his team enough time to turn things around. Already initiatives have been put in place, such as the signing of an MOU to provide Internet services to 283 educational institutions across Jamaica, and a number of cost-management initiatives. All too often a managing director is appointed and lasts for about two years before being succeeded by another with a new initiative to turn the fortunes of the telecoms behemoth. Dehring has the unenviable task of having to contend with an upbeat Flow and Digicel — who continue to grow subscriber base and is looking to acquire Claro’s operations in Jamaica.

Managing Director of LIME Jamaica Garry Sinclair

Managing Director of LIME Jamaica Garry Sinclair, commenting on these first quarter results, said: “The quarter under review provided mixed results as the business begins to reposition itself as the island’s only full-service provider. Our mobile business showed encouraging signs of improvement in terms of both revenue and gross margin over the same quarter last year, despite a reduction in prepaid subscribers. Higher ARPUs in both prepaid and postpaid of 19 per cent and 12 per cent respectively were primarily responsible for this performance. We will continue to focus on those areas of the mobile business whilst also making efforts to obtain a level playing field within the regulatory landscape.

“Revenues and margins from our Business segment were respectively 14 per cent and nine per cent higher than the same period last year due to more competitive pricing of our data products.”

Chris Dehring Chairman Lime Jamaica

Dehring has for some time now bemoaned the lack of a fair regulatory playing field. Addressing the impending merger of Claro’s operations with Digicel, Sinclair added: “We continue to closely monitor the planned merger between our major mobile competitors and are encouraged by the cautious and deliberative approach being pursued by both the government and regulators regarding its approval. We reiterate our expectations that a transaction with the potential for such an enormous impact on competition and the likely effects of market dominance will be given the requisite scrutiny by the government and our regulators before any approval is considered.”

Citicorp, commenting on LIME Jamaica’s performance, wrote: “The most charitable interpretation of the fiscal 1-Q results for C&W Jamaica, which is separately listed from controlling parent CWC, is that the business is gradually starting to bottom out. Revenue, gross margin and EBITDA were all down both sequentially and year on year, but the deterioration in revenue and gross margin appears to be moderating and the percentage gross margin at 63.9 per cent was the best for three quarters. Based on only one quarter’s evidence, and given seasonality has lately been getting more extreme, this is not definitive.”