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TeliaSonera to Become Eurasia's Leading Telecommunication Provider

ICT Materials 17 April 2008 19:47 (UTC +04:00)
TeliaSonera to Become Eurasia's Leading Telecommunication Provider

Azerbaijan, Baku, 17 April / Trend corr S. Babayeva/ TeliaSonera, Europe's big mobile communication operator, intends to take a leading position in Eurasia. The statement was made by Tero Kivisaari, President of TeliaSonera's Eurasian business office, on 17 April in Istanbul at the international conference on Telecommunications and IT for Turkey, Caspian Sea and Black Sea regions, Central Asia and Russia - Caspian Telecoms 2008.

According to Kivisaari, TeliaSonera plans to expand its coverage area and the number of its services. Turkey, where TeliaSonera's investments made up $513mln in 2007, will remain the main platform for enlargement of the company. The market-value of the company's investment in Turkey, Turkcell, amounted to $25bln.

In Eurasian region, TeliaSonera has been operating since 1993 in Turkey (Turkcell), since 1994 in Russia (1994 - North-West GSM, 2000 - Sonic Duo, 2002 - MegaFon), since 1996 in Azerbaijan (Azercell) and Georgia (Geocell), since 1998 in Kazakhstan (K'Cell), since 1999 in Moldova (Moldcell). Since 2000, TeliaSonera has owned Fintur Holdings which united the Azercell, Geocell, K'Cell and Moldcell operators. In 2007, TeliaSonera acquired the majority stakes in Coscom in Uzbekistan, in Somoncom and Indigo Tajikistan in Tajikistan, and a minority stake in Roshan in Afghanistan.

Last year, TeliaSonera received $14.2bln of revenues and $4.1bln of profits. The number of its subscribers made up 116mln in 18 countries.

TeliaSonera was established in Dec 2002 after merging of Swedish and Finnish mobile network operators - Telia and Sonera. The company unites over 690,000 shareholders, and the largest of them are the Swedish Government (37.3%) and Finnish Government (13.7%). TeliaSonera is the shareholder of Azerbaijan's mobile operator Azercell Teleсom through Fintur Holdings BV (TeliaSonera owns 58.55% of Fintur's stocks).

Azercell Telecom, largest GSM operator in Azerbaijan with over 3mln of subscribers, commenced operation on 15 December 1996.

On the second day of Caspian Telecoms 2008, Halim Atesh, President of Azercell Telecom, will deliver a speech on the subject of 'Opportunities of Informational Silken Way'.

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