Growth With The Power of Technology

[Music] everyone and thank you for joining us and just to update some info there it's actually 38 markets you know that iend is operating in so let's start with that exactly so I mean eend has gone through a transformation since uh it's rebranding in 2022 it's almost silly to call you knowa Telecom company only it's so much more than that it's a do a global tech company expanding um you know in in with services that it does and also with its back-to-back Acquisitions globally can you talk about that transition and you know where you're looking to expand to uh globally I think technology uh is a a a very encompassing uh industry it has many things Telecom is one of them Telecom is a great enabler for lots of the Technologies and by being a telecom company we have aity to many many customers in the markets we operate and during the time of Co it became very obvious how crucial having that amazing connectivity is so in our markets in the UEI of course primary but in all our markets the infrastructure that we've been building through the years was really able to withstand the demand of people working remotely studying remotely and at that time we were also using that time to think about what's next at that time we were a Telco company operating in 16 markets today we are uh we consider ourselves a technology company we operate Telco operations in 20 markets but we operate other services in 38 markets and other services is really part of that transformation because there are many adjacencies to telecommunications that we can offer to our customers that enables them to do business so we have have changed the structure of the company we have now Ian Enterprise which is a company focused on Corporate Services cyber security iot cloud services we have and of course now this is evolving into AI as well we have Ean life which focuses on fintech on entertainment into Super apps and all the services that we can give to retail customers H and of course we have the Telco looking at uh the UE we have a division that looks at International operations but also we have started a VC fund that invests in technologies that are both helpful to our technology Industries overall but also disruptive so some of the technologies that have the potential to disrupt our industry so really we changed how the company is and also in the geographies where we operate and I want to delve into you know the the different verticals that you're going to uh you know with technology but before that uh looking into your glob Global expansion so you know you're looking at Europe as well you know in addition to different parts of the Middle East can you talk about what your future goals are for expansion of Ian with the not only you know uh Telecom services but on the other services that you mentioned as well and for example with Europe like what obstacles you're facing like for example why did it take so long with the PFS you know that um you had uh you know sought you know with in Eastern Europe so we looked at uh Europe and Eastern Europe overall to create diversification of growth uh we already have a very significant footprint in Africa we have 11 operations in Africa uh we have operations in the Middle East Western Asia and we thought Europe would be a good diversification that also anchors the stability of the currency given that most of the operations we have in Europe now are either Euro based or packed to the euro so did gives us a bit more uh consistency in uh the earnings and profit and also in the overall Regulatory and uh political uh stability that we can see there uh of course going to Europe is very different because the regul the regulations there are very complex and while uh you know Europe is uh a continent that is supposedly encouraging uh investment it's going into these markets is very laborious you need to talk to Telecom regulators competition regulators and then that's in the countries and then you need to also uh talk on the EU level and uh we were the first uh company uh through the a new process called FSR foreign subsidy regulation and this applies to any entity that has over 25% uh uh Sovereign uh ownership so we were uh subject to that uh process uh it took us a very long time but I think the the great thing is now that we've been through it we understand how it works we've passed through it so it makes further investment in the future in Europe much easier exactly you had to like pave the way through that go by going through the experience and I want to shift back to what you were saying about the uh AI side of things so now you have a new Chief AI officer and it's as as you said Ian is a global technology company looking for Solutions and I spoke to your um uh CTO last week and talking about how you're preparing for 6G you know coming in in 2030 and what is your approach to AI it's a vast uh it's it's vast thing with many verticals and one thing I've learned from the Telecom sector is that it it allows all the generative AI that we're discussing to even be possible so can you talk about what your approach is with AI in uh expanding to different verticals and even on the for example reaching a wider customer base you know which you have done successfully so so let's first agree that AI is not new to to the world so we've been working with AI applications for years and we had AI already applied in many parts of our business in the network management we had AI applied in customer management churn prediction and so on I think where AI has really come in a different light H in the last two years is generative Ai and the ability to of AI to uh communicate in a much easier ways both for the developers to work with AI systems and then how AI can talk to customers in an easy way and this is where now there's this explosion of AI as people are trying to use AI more uh with a more advanced for example chat Bots where you have voice Bots that you're able to do customer service with an Almost Human Experience but with an AI uh application and also the way that you can Pro program things so in the in the past to do an application it needed very experienced developers now there are some of the AI uh possibilities where you can tell an AI what do you want the application to do and the AI will design it for you or program it for you or debug it for you so there are lots of things changing very fast and we are trying to be on top of this so we're using AI in many of our areas I mean be it if you're ordering food from Karim and you get an estimate of how long it will take until your food is delivered this is now using AI our Network and maintaining the quality of the network even if there's a a a problem in one of the sites the network self configures fixes itself this is using Ai and also today when we are looking into uh the kyc when you're opening an Ean money account which is a wallet which has also different regulations there's a lot of AI applications that that goes into that kyc that can expedite your approval so all of these things are using AI H and we are developing more so for example we have an alliance with soft Bank from Japan SEL South Korea Telecom and deuta Telecom where we are providing now specific data to teach AI models how to deal with Telecom issues and it's coming up with even more accuracy in dealing with these issues so AI is going to be an evolving theme I think we'll be hearing about its impact on business for the coming few years and uh we're very excited about that and we're very excited not only for our own use but how we can help our customers utilize AI to the betterment of their business as well exactly and I think today it's more of an expectation you you know for AI to provide those services like you mentioned with kadim the the estimate time it's becomes it's a dependence the volume of it is increasing so much so it's definitely something where you're preparing already for future needs uh when almost the demand is now you know but the you know technology is getting there and developing rapidly and you know ex looking now you know to the UAE with its goals of becoming a uh you know knowledge economy uh expanding you know digital aspect you know going through uh it's ongoing digital transformation where do you see contributing to that with developing this infrastructure this ecosystem for example with um you know Uber just launched their uh autonomous vehicles uh a Taxis you know here here in the UAE as their first International destination because this infrastruct uh infrastructure exists which is dependent on Telecom and communication and all of that so where do you see uh you know eend even developing that further I think we are definitely part of this overall ecosystem uh and the and the U as as you said I mean the first AI minister in the world was in the uee and that was already now more than 7 years ago so it's it's the EU has been going a long way on the AI route but we have been working on developing a world class infrastructure we have the best network in the world we have we're number one in the world in terms of the 5G Network we're the fastest and most efficient 5G Network in the world we have the highest fiber penetration in the world there isn't a single location in the UE be it residential or business that is not connected by fiber and all this is essential for running these applications because to run a proper AI you need realtime response of the network as you said autonomous cars autonomous cars cannot run without an efficient 5G Network same thing for drones and we're talking about now drone delivery and lots of applications at some point even drones that will carry people as well and I think in Abu Dhabi last week uh there was the signature for having autonomous passenger transport and that will not also work without having a a a really worldclass 5G Network so by establishing this by working with our part partnership with uh uh for example in kazna to provide data centers providing connectivity that links all this together not only our data centers but all the data centers that are in the nation we are making sure that we have best and World connectivity and that really enables all these applications to run efficien definitely and I I think that speaks to what you said about um you know when we're talking about generative a and the new uh taxing I would say you know on you know Telecom systems and such it's having this Foundation which is allowing all these things to happen from flying taxis to autonomous vehicles and such anything we're talking about the foundation at the end comes down down to the connectivity is it there if it's not then it's always going to be an obstacle and in talking about obstacles of course there's the impact on energy because we're talking about U you know as you know with generative AI it's it uses a lot of energy a lot of water uh and it has an impact on the environment and I know you have the climate uh climate transition plan and I wanted to discuss with the as you know I think it's great that you know you're looking uh you know in tandem to you know as you're developing the technology but also looking at the impact when it comes to the environment can you discuss that a bit about how you're actually doing that because I think sometimes it's easy to say yes you know we have a plan but then when we talk about the specific the strategy around it then uh you know that's where things get fuzzy so I'd love to hear your take I think that uh energy is becoming a a very key issues and there and of course impact on environment so we're doing two things first what we're doing on our own consumption our own network we were one of the first companies to commit in the uee for scope one and scope two to have zero emissions by 2030 and we are on track to achieve this we already have reduced our energy in the last 3 years by almost 40% during cup 28 we have demonstrated for the first time in the world uh a 5G site that's totally autonomous that's using solar mounted on the tower to be able to run the site and this was again you know a breakthrough in terms of Technology of Green Technology for networks and we have also announced that for our Global operations we are going to be uh uh zero carbon by 2040 so we're really working hard at it but where we also I think are adding more is by enabling other Industries to improve their energy usage and we're doing that through our iot platforms ability to monitor the the emissions coming from different things and using our cloud services using AI to improve this so we're not only thinking of what we do ourselves but also helping others in their Journey towards sustainability definitely well thank you so much I think we're out of time there's so much more to discuss uh you know but U thank you again for your for your insights and looking forward to the work in the future thank you very much [Applause] [Music] h