Ghana’s telecom market leader, MTN maintained its position as the overall Telecom Operator of the year at the Second Ghana Telecom Awards, organised by Instinct Wave Limited, publishers of Mobileworld Magazine. The award is given to the company that was not necessarily the largest operator but showed evidence of being the best and most innovative, ability to drive ARPUs, create value added services (VAS), and develop their business by moving into new areas or through service innovation. The Best Mobile Operator was judged based on sound performance, competitiveness and consistency with clear direction and strategic vision; development of new and innovative business models and relationships throughout the value chain; provision of strong and attractive service offerings; reliability, pricing and customer service, and evidence of a coherent roadmap for developing and driving the business forward, as well us CSR deliverables. MTN finished the year with some 10.2 million customers representing 48.8% market share and the company’s name has also become synonymous with CSR (corporate social responsibility) as it churned out development projects across country by the day. MTN also played a leadership role in moving the industry towards data by introducing several data dongle plans and also driving a focus on data and internet usage through its I-FEST (internet festival), the whole month of September last year. Head of MTN Business, Eric Nsarkoh, who received the award on behalf of the company, told Adom News it was an acknowledgement of the public’s acceptance and support for MTN’s efforts to serve and interest customers and Ghanaians as a whole. He said, going forward, MTN would continue to engage customers more and more to ensure its services and products were what the public wanted and not just what MTN wanted to put on the market. “It is not a given that MTN won the award for second time because of its market leadership position but it took carefully planned strategies to provide relevant solutions that made the company stand out,” he said. MTN also won the CSR Initiative of the Year, and pundits have argued that MTN had all the money to undertake CSR activities so it was going to continue winning the award. But Mr. Nsarkoh said the notion that MTN had all the money was debatable, “but even if it was so, it takes a lot of leadership, organization of resources and human engagements to bring the kind of development that MTN brings to various communities across the country.”