Turkcell CEO Terzioglu Sets the Target of Serving 100 Million Customers in the Region

Turkcell’s (NYSE:TKC) (BIST:TCELL) CEO Kaan Terzioglu gave a keynote address at the Mobile World Congress , GSMA’s biggest gathering held in annually in Barcelona. In his speech, Terzioglu called on telecoms companies to embrace change and focus on providing real experience of connectivity to their customers, combining services and superior network. In Barcelona, Terzioglu also annnounced Turkcell’s target of serving 100 million customers in the region.

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(Photo: Business Wire)

(Photo: Business Wire)

“To meet the challenge of OTTs, we need to offer real, meaningful connectivity”

In his keynote speech, Turkcell’s CEO explained the three pillars of the company’s growth strategy: Growing as an integrated operator, taking its experience in Turkey to the countries where Turkcell Group operates and to the rest of the region, and increasing its global relevance through OTT products and services. Drawing on the example of BiP, Turkcell’s IP-based communication application which has already reached more than 6.2 million users, Terzioglu said:

“We have to catch the opportunity to provide real, meaningful connectivity to our customers and become the platform through which they enjoy a full experience of communication. BiP combines the best qualities of a number of different communication applications, plus it comes with the support of a fully licensed operator. In the future, we’ll enrich the BiP experience with a feature that enables calls to landlines. BiP is an example of the success that an OTT product can achieve when properly backed by a telecoms operator. ”

“We focus on regional growth to have a larger global footprint”

Terzioglu emphasized that Turkcell’s experience in prodiving services – including BiP, music and personal cloud apps as well as Turkcell TV+, the company’s highly successful TV platform - will be among its biggest asset as the company increases its regional and global relevance. When asked about functioning in a highly competitive environment, Terzioglu said it is a “blessing” that pushes Turkcell to constantly question the status quo and to be more innovative.

Turkcell has recently reiterated its appetite for M&A, submitting a non-binding offer for the majority stake of FINTUR currently owned by Telia Sonera. FINTUR, a Turkcell-Telia Sonera partnership, operates in 4 countries: Kazakhstan, Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan. However, Turkcell does not limit its goal of increasing regional relevance to M&A: Terzioglu talked about the opportunities provided by digital services, citing the number of BiP downloads in Iran, Germany, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.

“Up to 375 Mbps mobile broadband speed will make us one of the top operators globally”

Turkcell’s CEO also underscored the need for operators to support the services layer with the best-in-class network technologies. Reminding the audience that Turkcell will launch 4.5G in Turkey on April 1st, Terzioglu said “we will launch 4.5G in 81 cities – that is, in every city in our home country Turkey. We will offer up to 375 Mbps mobile broadband speed thanks to our LTE-A investment and spectrum advantage – we will be the only operator in Turkey and one of the very few operators globally to achieve this. with our current spectrum configuration we aim to take this upper limit to 1.2 Gbps when the handsets allow it.”

Terzioglu’s keynote speech can be accessed on http://www.mobileworldlive.com/mwc16-videos/mwc16-keynote-turkcell/

ABOUT TURKCELL: Turkcell is a converged communication and technology services player in Turkey. Turkcell Group has approximately 68.8 million mobile, fixed and IPTV subscribers as of December 31, 2015. Turkcell was one of the first among the global operators to have implemented HSPA+. It has announced two new HSPA+ Technologies on its 3G network to meet rising data usage. Having successfully integrated 3C-HSDPA and DC-HSUPA Technologies, it became the first mobile operator in the world to enable peak speed of 63.3 Mbps downlink while also enabled an 11.5 Mbps uplink on a 3G network. Turkcell is the first telecom operator to offer households fiber broadband connection at speeds of up to 1,000 Mbps in Turkey. As of December 2015, Turkcell’s population coverage is at 99.85% in 2G and 95.03% in 3G. Turkcell Group reported a TRY12.8 billion (US$4.7 billion) revenue with total assets of TRY26.2 billion (US$9.0 billion) as of December 31, 2015. It has been listed on the NYSE and the BIST since July 2000, and is the only NYSE-listed company in Turkey. Read more at www.turkcell.com.tr

Contacts:

Hande Asik, +90-532-210 6471
Turkcell Corporate Communications - International Media
hande.asik@turkcell.com.tr

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