Jazz, a leading telecom operator in Pakistan and owned by VEON of Russia, is one of the winners of TelecomLead.com Innovation Leaders 2020 for its digital strategy to drive growth.

Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim, who has been leading the company since 2016, is responsible for drafting innovative strategies to find revenue streams and minimize operational costs. Khalid Shehzad is the chief technology officer of Jazz responsible for technology selection of its network.

Jazz’sself-care app, Jazz World, has 6.6 million active users, and it is the largest telecom app in Pakistan. Jazz TV’s monthly active user base reached over 1 million as the telecom operator has a strong focus on the selection of content for its smartphone customers.

JazzCash’s user base has touched 9.7 million monthly active users and it has 23 million registered wallets. JazzCash’s customers processed nearly 900 million transactions worth PKR 1.7 trillion in the last 12 months. Jazz says JazzCash is on track to surpass the 10 million monthly active user milestone in early Q4 2020.

Jazz has teamed up with Knowledge Platform to provide access to online learning resources on the platform’s portal and mobile applications. Jazz has introduced a special monthly data bundle providing 10 GB for PKR 150 to facilitate over 270,000 students in 100 cities, who are registered with Knowledge Platform.

Jazz is also providing remote learning opportunities to students as educational institutes are closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jazz is offering affordable weekly and monthly data and voice packages, an android app with the name Jazz Parho, and the world’s most affordable 4G Phone – Digit 4G.

Jazz’s business growth is driven by its investment in mobile network. Jazz has increased its capex intensity to 20 percent in the third quarter of 2020 as compared with 14 percent during the third quarter of 2019.

Capex excluding licenses was PKR 3.7 billion in 3Q20, equivalent to capex intensity of 20.1 percent versus 14.1 percent in 3Q19. Jazz says 4G network investment is the principal focus and 4G network’s population coverage reached 56 percent recently.

Jazz’s 4G penetration rate reached 35 percent recently from the 30 percent penetration recorded in 2Q20. Jazz’s 4G customer base rose 70 percent.

Winners of the TelecomLead.com Innovation Awards 2020 were selected by a group of technology journalists, analysts and telecom industry veterans. We are not disclosing their names since some of them have NDA-related issues.