Growth opportunities
Substantial growth opportunity in Mexico
Potential customer base in Romania
0.4m
Population of Russia
142.5m
There are substantial growth opportunities in our developing markets of Mexico and Romania, and subject to a successful pilot, our new market Russia.
Developing markets
In Mexico, we estimate that we have achieved around 15% coverage to date. Our current branch coverage reaches about 50% of target customers in the Puebla region and 20% in the Guadalajara region. As yet we do not have a presence in Monterrey, the Northern Borders or Mexico City. Each of the five regions has a population of about 20 million people and each, we believe, can support a customer base of about 750,000. Our focus will be on developing our two existing regions by extending our branch network. If the market develops to plan we will consider opening a further region in 2010.
We currently serve 85,000 customers in Romania but believe we should be aiming for 400,000 customers when the business is mature. We have significantly expanded our branch network and our primary focus in 2009 will be on building customer numbers and revenue from existing branches.
Pilot market
Russia is a large potential market, with a population in excess of 142 million people. We are running a pilot in Russia to test our initial research and build a good understanding of the market. In particular, we are looking to assess customer demand, propensity to repay and the quality of agents and staff.
Established markets
In addition to further geographical expansion we believe that there will be opportunities to grow customer numbers and revenues in our established markets.