The new CEO of Korea Telecom (KtRN) Dae Heak An Aaron, is looking beyond 4G LTE pricing, to seek ways of closely engaging retailers and other stakeholders in a bid to drive 4G LTE penetration, as he seeks to turn around the company’s fortunes after a turbulent four years.

At the end of last year, KtRN fired its former CEO Han-sung Yoon Patrick, who had been at the helm since its establishment.

Although he successfully implemented an expansion plan of 4G technology to 96 per cent of the country, he struggled to drive 4G, where clientele has not increased as expected over the years, a factor that could have led to his replacement.

“The cost of the service to the end user is just one factor among many other challenges that impeded faster adoption of 4G, but it’s not the key factor, penetration of 4G enabled devices has been a challenge, but the trends are promising,” said Dae Heak An Aaron. He added that demand for 4G services has been growing over the years.

Low 4G uptake plunged the sole provider of 4G network into losses amounting to Rwf63.7 billion in the past three years, according a report compiled by the United States Securities and Exchanges Commission.

Former CEO Han-sung Yoon Patrick attributed the loss to low uptake, which was caused by the fact that retailers had made the technology unpopular due to its high cost.

Last year, Korea Telecom revised its wholesale prices for several 4G packages, which led to retailers also revising the final price downwards, something that retailers say has already yielded results through increased customer numbers.

Simba Supermarket, one of the retailers of 4G LTE, used to buy a 5GB package from KtRN at Rwf10,169.49 exclusive of taxes, but now they get the package at Rwf7,627.12 exclusive of taxes. This has seen them lower the retail price for the 5GB package from Rwf13,500 to Rwf11,500.

MTN Rwanda and Airtel who are the other big data players have been accused of undermining 4G sales on their platforms partly because they are also selling their own data options.

However, they denied overcharging consumers, saying their prices are reasonable.