Aamir Ibrahim

Early life and background

Aamir Ibrahim was born in Mangla, Pakistan. His father worked for WAPDA, and Ibrahim spent his first 10 years between Mangla and Tarbela. The family then moved to Lahore. [1]

Education

Ibrahim studied at Aitchison until 1987, then went to the University of Texas, Austin. He spent his undergraduate years at UT Austin. Around 2001 he went to Switzerland for an MBA at IMD. [1]

Career

Ibrahim got a job in early 1994 with a CV in hand and no referral. Mobilink was his first job, and he spent about seven years there. He was marketing general manager and launched a product called Jazz, which is now the name of the company. He was also the product manager for a prepaid offering, launched around 1999, at a time when most connections were postpaid. [1]

After his MBA, Ibrahim joined Ford Motor Company's marketing leadership program. At Ford he spent two to two and a half years in Dubai, selling Jaguars and Range Rovers to the Middle East and Africa. He then moved back to the UK to sell spare parts. In total he spent six or seven years with Ford Motor Company. [1]

Ibrahim returned to Pakistan in 2008 and spent about six years there. He also worked with Telenor Group in Thailand for about two years. He returned to Pakistan in 2015 and has been CEO of Jazz since 2016. [1]

Jazz

Ibrahim said he had just finished his seventh year as CEO. He said that Jazz is now almost twice the size of Telenor and has about 75 million customers, roughly 38 to 39 percent of the Pakistan market. He said Jazz avoids the word dominant because it suggests an anti-competitive mindset. [1]

Ibrahim said his company acquired the telecom company Warid, and the combined Warid and Mobilink entity was rebranded as Jazz. He said scale is very important in telecom, which made the merger significant. [1]

Ibrahim said Jazz set out to move from telecom company to technology company and then to data or digital operator, and that it now positions itself as a digital operator. He said many people in Pakistan still see Jazz as a telecom company that sells SIMs and builds towers, which he described as linear growth. He argues that many telecom companies have lost relevance and are called dumb pipes. He said Jazz could strip some cost out and reinvest that money in new areas, such as a messaging platform and its fintech ambition. He describes the phone as the remote control to a person's life, and argues that the more time users spend in an app, the more digital fingerprints they leave for that company. [1]

JazzCash and digital services

Ibrahim said Jazz World started as an app for checking bills, and many other features have since been added. He said Jazz World has about 10 million monthly active users. He said Tamasha streams live television channels, including news, sports and entertainment. He also said Jazz is considering a super app that it cannot yet disclose, and that it plans to move into local content development. [1]

Ibrahim said Jazz bought a bank about six or seven years ago and then developed JazzCash, and that Jazz applied for a digital banking licence. He said JazzCash will become a bank, and that he holds a microfinance banking licence. He said Jazz has a bank, Mobilink Microfinance Bank, through which it can also provide lending. He said fintech has been Jazz's biggest move into an adjacency beyond telecom. He said Jazz would be able to score credit better using AI and machine learning and make specific offers to customers, and that Jazz wants to move from payments into full-fledged lending. [1]

Ibrahim said JazzCash has about 15 million active monthly account holders and about 200,000 merchants that accept QR payments. He also said JazzCash has about 16 million customers, more than Pakistan's largest bank. He said Jazz perhaps holds more data than NADRA, knowing the usage behaviour of 75 million customers. He said his biggest current focus at JazzCash is bringing payment acceptance points to Pakistan. [1]

Views on digital payments

Ibrahim said some people do not want to embrace the documented economy, partly because they feel they will have to pay more in taxes. He said a majority of those people feel their privacy will be infringed upon and that they will be abused by the tax authorities. He said more than 75 percent of Pakistani adults have no formal banking instrument. [1]

Ibrahim said government payments in both directions should all be digital. He argues digital payments make corruption harder because each transaction leaves a trace. He said friction in the system carries costs that will come down with greater scale, and that a one percent retailer fee is roughly acceptable. [1]

Views on investment and retail

Ibrahim said Jazz's first investment inside Pakistan was made through VEON Ventures. He said most investments in Pakistan so far have been purely venture capital, and that Jazz's partnership and investment are different from others that have happened so far. He said he is not a venture capitalist and has limited experience of that role. [1]

Ibrahim said the options are to borrow, build or buy, and that of a hundred ideas, ten are selected and one of those succeeds. He said Jazz likes to see people's energy, sincerity and motivation, and why they are doing the work. He said money matters less to him than the effort Jazz will put into building the business, and that the bigger risk for Jazz is doing nothing rather than trying and failing. [1]

Ibrahim said Pakistan has about two million small, medium and micro retail stores, and that a retailer's core problems are profitability, access to capital and good buying and selling. He said Jazz wants a marketplace where suppliers can bring their products, which it cannot currently do itself, and that Dastgyr is doing it. [1]

Views on 5G and connectivity

Ibrahim said 99 percent of internet use in Pakistan runs over mobile, and that 4G penetration is 40 percent. He said Pakistan is not close to an internet of everything, and that 5G has launched in 50 or 60 countries, but the real benefit has come in very few places. He said he prefers 4G for all over 5G for a few. [1]

Ibrahim proposes that spectrum be provided free for test hubs in three cities, with at least 50 sites. He said the benchmark set for Pakistan was from a very old time and was low. He said some Karachi areas, where Jazz allocated more spectrum to 4G, reach 150 megabits per second. He said duties alone on a Samsung 5G phone are about 80,000 to 90,000 rupees and that tax on internet use is close to 35 percent. He warned that the telecom industry may not survive unless ARPU rises from about 200 to 300 rupees. [1]

Views on Pakistan's future

Ibrahim says Pakistan will be better in 2050, when it closes 100 years of existence, and that Jazz will make Pakistan a digital Pakistan. He urges young people to be optimistic and encourages people to focus on their circle of influence, not their circle of concern. He said Netflix content may feel disconnected for Pakistani audiences. [1]

Personal life

Ibrahim describes himself as an eternal optimist who argues with the government every day. He has a 19-year-old daughter. He says he works with colleagues who are half his age or younger, and that he learns from younger colleagues through reverse mentoring. [1]

Timeline

1987

Studied at Aitchison until 1987, then went to the University of Texas, Austin.[1]

1994

Got a job in early 1994.[1]

1999

A prepaid offering for which he was product manager launched around 1999.[1]

2001

Went to Switzerland for an MBA at IMD, around 2001.[1]

2008

Returned to Pakistan.[1]

2016

Became CEO of Jazz.[1]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. Jazz's CEO on why 4G for all beats 5G for a few . Thought Behind Things , 2022-06-15.