Kampala, Uganda — After hardly a year of operations in Uganda, Warid Telecoms Limited, the latest addition to the ever growing list of the country's mobile phone service providers, has won two Africa regional recognition awards.

Warid Telecoms last week bagged two of the five awards for which the company was nominated. The company got the Africacom2008 award for the new Entrant of the Year and Customer Services Provider of the Year at the Informa organised awards giving ceremony held in Cape Town, South Africa.

The awards were a Pan-African event in which all the mobile phone operators on the continent sought the much coveted awards.

Speaking at the Warid offices recently, the company's chief commercial officer, Tushar Kant Maheshwari attributed the company's success to the dedicated staff team, committed customers and the various range of new innovative products that Warid has introduced to the market since it became operational in February 2008.

"At our inaugural launch we rolled out the Warid brand as a whole, with exceptions to Northern Uganda. The Warid network was operational at the same time throughout the whole country which has not been the case with the other service providers in Uganda. Warid also found an environment that was in need of innovative services at affordable rates," he added.

Tushar said that could partly explain their huge customer base which is estimated at 1.2million subscribers in less than ten months of service.

Warid Telecom has in the past introduced and run rather successful promotions like the Bang KB For Free, Mega Bonus and Incoming Call Bonus among others.

The Bang KB For Free promotion was introduced to cater for the younger clients that wished to call and connect with friends and family for longer periods of time, all one had to do was pay for the first two minutes of the phone call and the rest would be free for up to two hours.

Mega Bonus was a follow up to the Bang KB For Free and its requirements were that a customer tops up on their account balance with any amount of airtime, which would entitle them to 24 hours of free calls the next day to Warid subscribers, while the Incoming Call Bonus entitles Warid network subscribers to free airtime for all phone calls that they receive be it local or international.

The many new innovative services that Warid has launched in the Ugandan market include the Warid game zone, 3G internet an EDGE enable internet wireless access pointS at subsidised costs, voice SMS, music dedications via MMS service and a 'good network coverage to back up these services'.

The Warid learning centre is the latest addition to the company's attempt to continue training its employees while on the job.

According to Tushar, the Warid learning centre will comprise of a library, study centre and a research centre all at the same point and will be accessed during office hours.