Atanas Raykov: Viber Planning to Increase Customer Base in CEE by 25-30%

It is quite challenging to deliver truly glocal experience to millions of customers in Central and Eastern Europe when it comes to communication, Atanas Raykov, Viber's General Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, has told Novinite. 

Mr Raykov is among the nominees in our annual Personality in the News poll where voting will continue until February 20.

Having worked in the telecoms industry for ten years, he was offered a position at Viber in 2015, as the latter was setting up an office in Sofia. 

What is the most specific feature of the market in Central and Eastern Europe, the region you are in charge of, compared to the rest of Europe or the US?

It's one of the most diverse regions in the world in terms of language, culture and heritage - the 13 countries that we cover speak more than 10 languages, have different heritage, culture, predominant religion and underlying social specifics. This makes it quite challenging to deliver truly glocal experience to these millions customers when it comes to communication. Because the communication with the closest ones, where Viber is undisputed leader in CEE is the most personal and local part of the life of our users. We have strived to work only with local partners, to learn from them and to deliver services that our communities really appreciate.

You once said Viber would become "the most Bulgarian" communication platform. Could you elaborate on that and how far are you from achieving it?

I can confidently say that we have made quite a big progress over the last year. Viber now has a team of 7 Bulgarians managing a whole region, who however pay a lot of attention to the local market as well - we have launched more...