Bakcell Chief Puzzled

Chief Executive Officer of Bakcell Richard Shearer believes that the emergence of a fourth mobile operator would be unprofitable for the market of Azerbaijan.

As he said to local journalists today, the instability of the global financial market determined the trend of reducing the number of mobile operators across Europe, and if you look closely, you can see that, for example, in Italy, their number was reduced from four to three, in the UK - from five to three, and in France - from five to four. "We do not understand how a small market of Azerbaijan may receive a fourth mobile operator, especially against the background of falling oil prices," he said, referring to the recent statement by the company Delta Telecom (primary provider of Internet services in the local market) of the plans to provide mobile services.

Recall, this structure has said that at the first stage it is planned to deploy services of data transfer based on LTE, and then proceed to provide voice services in the standard GSM. The company intends to apply to the Ministry of Communications and High Technologies of AR for a license. The company plans to complete the Implementation of the technical details of the project in the first quarter of 2016. Mobile services, according to the idea, will be promoted under the brand name of the subsidiary of Delta Telecom, Telecom Invest.

Three mobile operators, Azercell, Bakcell and Azerfon (Nar) operate in the local market. Their services cover the entire country, except territories occupied by Armenia. --17D-