Ukraine’s new mobile operator life 🙂 held its first press conference in the UMBB building in Kiev on February 1th 2005. Astelit Chief Executive Ahmet Tanyu, Turkcell Chief Executive Muzaffer Akpinar and TeliaSonera Deputy Chief Executive Esko Rytkönen were among those who attended the press conference for life :). The company had started to provide service in the last week of January.
With life 🙂 starting its operations, Turkcell who has 51% shares indirectly on the new operator, has increased the number of its actively operating foreign ventures to six.
Turkcell Chief Executive Muzaffer Akpinar expressed their happiness on behalf of the Turkcell family, for bringing the knowledge and experience of Turkcell to Ukraine. Akpinar pointed out that Ukraine, which is getting through a fast change is similar to Turkey on this point of view and that their enterprise in Ukraine is going to serve to the relationships between the two nations.
Akpinar said that Turkcell is working continuously with its vision of becoming a regional operator and that Turkcell is planning to invest $250-300 million initially for its project in Ukraine and he noted that the amount could increase in the future. Moreover Akpinar pointed out that their enterprises in different regions have helped them to gain valuable experience and that these international experiences had a big role in their existence in the Board of Directors for the World GSM Association today with the biggest operators of the world.
Astelit Chief Executive Ahmet Tanyu said that, with life 🙂 they are preparing to change the vision of Ukraine in the mobile communication market and that they are going to offer a new ‘mobile life’ to their customers. Tanyu noted that with their faith in their values, advanced and high technological infrastructure, customer focused approaches and the fresh new ‘service’ concept that they are aiming to implement in the market, they are going to be the top operator in Ukraine in the long run.
Initially, the people living in the seven big cities of Ukraine (Kiev, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Simferopol and Lviv) are going to start to benefit the services offered by life :). These seven cities’ population consists the 20% of Ukraine’s total population. According to the plans, life 🙂 is going to cover all the cities and main roads where population is dense, by the end of this year.
Turkcell and Its Foreign Investments
Turkcell, being the leader in the GSM sector in Turkey is also the leader operator in its region. Aiming the permanency of its position, Turkcell is continuing to utilize the opportunities in the communication market of the region. Within this context the information about the remote enterprises of Turkcell is as follows:
Fintur International:
Fintur International continued its powerful growth through 2004’s third quarter as well and gained approximately 459.000 new subscribers in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Moldavia. Turkcell with Fintur has AzerCell, K•Cell, GeoCell and MoldCell enterprises in these countries. AzerCell and K•Cell are leaders in their respective markets. Fintur realized a total of 3.5 million subscribers by September 30th 2004. Besides, the earnings achieved in the third quarter of 2004 have exceeded 20% of those from the previous quarter and realized $155 million.
Turkcell holds 41.45% of shares at Fintur and is reporting its investments at Fintur by the equity capital management. According to this, Turkcell had realized $15 million in earnings in the third quarter of 2004 from Fintur.
KKTCell:
KKTCell which started providing service in 1999 is 100% Turkcell enterprise. It is operating within a framework of a distribution of income agreement with Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus Telecommunication Chamber.
Ukraine:
Astelit which is an enterprise of Eurasia which is our 51% enterprise has started the installation of GSM 1800 network in Ukraine and after the initial progress had been completed the service has started in the last days of January 2005. For the network investments, Nokia (125 million Euro), Ericsson (89 million USD) and Sysdate (13 million USD) have signed supplier agreements. Turkcell became a guarantor in proportion of its investments, in case Astelit doesn’t’t comply with its financial responsibilities. The company’s total investment spending was $128 million by the end of the third quarter ( September 30th 2004) in Ukraine. Starting from the second quarter of the year 2004, the Ukraine operation is being reported as having consolidated, in the financial statements of Turkcell.
Iran:
Turkcell had completed all the terms for the tender about the Iran GSM license. But Iranian Parliament had announced that for the investments in which foreign investors have more than 50.1% shares, rules require an approval from the Parliament, so the company is now waiting for the Parliament to give that last approval.
Kaynak : 