Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani, Chairman of Ooredoo Group, along with other VIPs cutting a cake during the official re-branding ceremony at Katara yesterday. Below: Artists presenting a theatrical show at the function. (Shaival Dalal)
By Azmat Haroon
Doha: Qtel’s new brand identity was formalised yesterday with the company announcing the launch of ‘4G LTE’ at an event at Katara.
4G LTE is a mobile broadband network, which is expected to appear in the market next month, Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani, Chairman of Ooredoo, said.
The Minister of Economy and Finance H E Yousuf Hussein Kamal launched Ooredoo in the presence of ministers, ambassadors and other dignitaries.
More than 2,000 people, a majority of them staff members of Ooredoo, attended the event, which was broadcast live on Qatar TV.
The new brand name is expected to appear on all Ooredoo services and products in a roll-out phase, which began last evening.
“Qtel has thousands of assets and it will take time before the new brand name begins to appear on all of them,” Fatima Al Kuwari, Director of Public Relations at Ooredoo, said.
A nation-wide media campaign of the new brand name is set to begin today. The launch of the new brand was celebrated by a multimedia and theatrical show.
“We have always put our customers at the heart of our business, and this new name shows that we want to be closer to our customers and engage with them in everything that we do,” Saud Al Thani said.
“We are proud that Qatar, where the business was born, is the first country in Ooredoo’s international network to integrate with the new global brand,” he added.
Al Kuwari said re-branding has had more positive reactions than negative ones.
The new brand name had mixed reactions in Qatar with many people expressing their opinions on social networking sites earlier. “People usually have different reactions and it’s not easy to change their minds but we have had more constructive feedback,” she said.
“The circles in the unique logo represent the communities. The red colour represents warmth, energy and youth, and is recognisable in both advertising and retail shops. Altogether these elements reflect confidence, energy and empathy,” the company said in a statement.
Since the first telephone exchange was installed in Qatar in 1949, the organisation has been a community-based Qatari company that provides life-enhancing communications products and services to a wide range of customers. In 1994, it was the first company in the region to introduce GSM services and in 2007 it launched Mozaic TV, the pioneering IPTV service.
In 2012, Ooredoo rolled out the Ooredoo Fibre network and launched business services like the Cloud and Mobile Money.
Concluding the ceremony, a large group of children holding red balloons entered the amphitheatre, with an amazing ballet performance.
Each of Ooredoo’s operating companies in the Middle East, North Africa and Southeast Asia will adopt the new brand during 2013 and 2014. These companies, in which Ooredoo has a controlling interest, include brands such as Indosat in Indonesia, Wataniya in Kuwait, Nawras in Oman, Tunisiana in Tunisia, and Nedjma in Algeria.
The Peninsula
