“We aim to increase our revenues in the coming term, and the economies of scale created by that will increase our profits,” Vodafone Turkey chief executive Serpil Timuray told reporters on Wednesday.
Intense price competition between Turkey’s three mobile phone operators limited January-September growth to 2 percent, she said, but the market should improve in 2010 with higher growth rates, and mobile penetration and prices should stabilize. According to Timuray, the per minute fee dropped by 30 percent, but traffic increased significantly, leading to a modest increase in revenues of 2 percent in the first three quarters of the year compared to the same period last year.
New market liberalization measures such as mobile number portability increased competition in Turkey, and the regulator has actively fined operators for excessive call termination rates to other networks. Speaking on this issue, Timuray noted that Vodafone was the only company to increase the number of subscribers in the last quarter between July and September, and added: “More than 3 million people have transferred their numbers over to Vodafone. Since April we’ve become the most preferred operator for those wishing to transfer their numbers.”
Timuray said data retrieval from mobile phones should drive growth during 2010-11. Analysts have said the country has strong growth potential because of the low level of broadband penetration in households. Moreover, Timuray said that only 10 percent of cell phones in Turkey were 3G compatible, but added that there is a growing demand for multimedia services, especially mobile TV. Vodafone Turkey sales accounted for about 3 percent of the Vodafone group’s revenue in the year to March 2009. Turkcell is the leader in Turkey with a market share of 56 percent. Fixed-line operator Turk Telekom’s Avea mobile unit is third behind Vodafone Turkey.
