From region to region with high-speed mobile internet

Azercell Telecom announces 2017 operational year results

Azercell Telecom LLC successfully continues its operation as the leading mobile operator of telecoms industry in Azerbaijan. The annual report of the Company"s 2017 year results includes detailed information about it. With 48.2% share of Azerbaijan"s mobile market Azercell"s network covers 80% of the territory (excluding 20% lands under occupation) and 99,8% of population of the country. Currently, 4,5 million subscribers prefer Azercell services.

Financial indicators

Azercell paid 179,9 million manats in taxes to state budget in 2017 and 1 billion 637 million manats over 21 years of its operation. The leading mobile operator invested 24,610,152 US dollars on the development of telecommunications in Azerbaijan. The total investment of the company on the sector made 1 billion 467 million and 779,40 US dollars over 1996-2017.

Coverage
Azercell, the first presenter of 4G services in the country, aiming to provide all regions of Azerbaijan with high speed mobile internet, has installed new 4G stations in Ganja, Barda, Shamkir and Lankaran in addition to Baku and Absheron peninsula in 2017. As a result, Azercell became the first mobile operator to bring LTE service to the regions. In 2017 the total number of Radio Base Stations of Azercell reached 5506, of which 4957 are 2G & 3G stations, and 549 are 4G stations. The number of LTE users in Azercell network- the largest in the country, increased three-fold in 2017, while data consumption have increased by 50%, year on year.

Customer in focus

Always focused on customer satisfaction, Azercell is the first company in Azerbaijan that has started to measure the Customer Loyalty Index. Thus, Azercell has scored 63% in the latest Net Promote Score (NPS) evaluation for the second quarter of 2017, by surpassing all of its competitors. The company also scored 81% in Customer Satisfaction Survey. It should be noted that both scores are considered high according to international standards.

Azercell has successfully passed the recertification audit for ISO quality management standard in delivering effective customer services.

- ISO 18295-1:2017 - providing clients and customers with services that continuously and proactively meet or exceed their needs at customer contact centers

- ISO 10002:2014 - management of customer complaints- handling process

Azercell has also been awarded "Socially Devoted" certificate by "Socialbakers" company for 100% response rate to customer inquiries on social networks.

As a result of high quality services and unique offers for corporate clients, more than 1,400 new companies trusted their communication to Azercell and joined

Azercell introduced its Exclusive stores with a new concept in 2017. New stores designed in a Nordic concept, are offering various kinds of services in one place and provide easiness for choice were opened in Baku, Khirdalan, Guba and Khachmaz.

Azercell delighted its subscribers in 2017 with favorable campaigns and smartphone bundles. As the only official presenter of iPhone devices in Azerbaijan, Azercell Telecom launched exclusive campaigns when customers obtained iPhone smartphones in bundle with favorable "Hedsiz" tariff pack. As a result, smartphone penetration among Azercell subscribers increased by 20% year on year.

Products and services

Azercell is known as a company bringing innovative solutions and modern services to communications market of Azerbaijan. Last year was no exception in this regard. Thus, Virtual ATS service launched for the first time in the country, supports to merge existing mobile and fixed numbers to a single network. Thanks to this service, companies get a single multi-channel number for receiving and distributing incoming calls. Now communication with existing and potential customers is easy to use and communications between offices and divisions of the company is more effective.

Azercell also combined different additional services for the convenience of its customers under Azercell Plus umbrella. Thus, Azercell Plus allows music and video streaming, book reading in different languages, provide cyber security children and adults,

Azercell Telecom displayed the latest innovations in telecoms market at Bakutel Telecom Exhibition, being also a general sponsor of the event in 2017. Thus, Azercell was the first company to make VoLTE (voice over LTE) call in the country with its technical partner Ericsson aiming to expand capabilities of wireless communication. Notably, VoLTE technology enables subscribers to make voice calls over 4G network and use HD voice and video calling services. In addition, technological solutions such as "Cloud technologies", "Smart parking" "Connected cube" were among the novelties presented by Azercell in the exhibition.

Social responsibility

Azercell, which has carried out a number of Corporate Social Responsibility projects over past 21 years, spent over 1 million USD on improvement of social life, as well as the development of entrepreneurship and human resources in 2017. The total spending on this area has made 18 million 718 thousand 649,12 USD over 1996-2017.

Drawing a special attention to the protection of children on internet Azercell has started to conduct training sessions on cybersecurity for schoolchildren, teachers and parents at secondary schools of Baku. Trainings entitled "Internet security and digital citizenship" in cooperation with Azerbaijan Teachers Development Centre introduced comprehensive information about protection of children and adults from various threads in the developing world of information technologies.

Barama Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center of Azercell continues to support young startups. During the reporting period the Center held 80 events, Including technological projects, group works, forums, training courses, meetings, contests, as well as social and cultural events. 4 more Barama offices opened the regions and Baku, 5 international events and 20 startup incubation were also realized in 2017.

25 students became the honorary scholars of Azercell in 2017 under the Student Programs. 2 of 24 students joining summer internship program were hired by Azercell as the staff employees. The company was awarded a certificate of "The most attended stand" at 12th International Career Fair organized by ITECA and the Ministry of Education. Azercell Academy organized 118 training sessions in total within Azercell and for various companies in order to increase professional competence of the human resources.

Azercell has been providing support to Children"s Paralympics Committee since 2014. 111 athletes with physical disabilities from 8 regions joined the tournaments to compete for 19 set of medals in 7 types of sports in Children"s Paralympic Games in 2017. Young paralympians successfully represented the country at international tournaments throughout the year and won medals and awards.

Azerbaijan "Children Hotline Service" established and operating with the support of Azercell and "Reliable Future" Public Union is one of the projects aimed to protect children"s rights, take care of their well-being. The mobile application of "Children Hotline" service was launched in 2017 with the initiative of Azercell. The service received 3424 appeals during the year.

Azercell"s Mobile Eye Clinic provided free-of-charge eye inspections to 1426 individuals, including children deprived of parental care, the old and low-income households. Mobile Dental Clinic of Azercell examined and treated 775 individuals for free in Baku and Absheron.

In addition, under the discounted Veteran campaign launched for the purpose of social support, war veterans receive a total bonus of AZN 60,000 per month. Under MediaCell tariff pack designed for journalists, media representatives receive a total bonus of AZN 20,000 per month from Azercell.

Azercell, always drawing a special attention to the cooperation with the media outlets, continued English language courses in online format. Under the courses that were initially launched in 2009, 50 more journalists joined online English lessons during 2017.

Aimed to promote the culture of reading and national authors among the young generation, as well as give an opportunity for intellectual rest in our dynamic lives, Azercell Telecom organized the reading days at Starbucks cafes under "The youth is reading books" project.

All these activities of Azercell drew the attention of local and international organizations and the company was granted various local and international awards last year. The company was granted a special award for the strong position in the national market and in international ratings, successful implementation of modern management technologies, high staff qualification and efficient marketing strategy at the International Conference "Excellence in Quality" in Switzerland. Azercell CEO Vahid Mursaliyev was awarded a gold medal and diploma as "The best patriotic company CEO" by the European Publishing House.

All indicators mentioned above and many more give ground to state that Azercell Telecom LLC has finished the year with lots of achievements and success. The leading mobile operator of the country Azercell will continue its activities in 2018 with the focus to provide customers with reliable and high quality communication services, make high speed mobile internet available for everyone, maintain high level of services and introduce innovative solutions and new technologies in telecoms market.

For more information, please contact news@mcs.az

The leader of the mobile communication industry, the largest taxpayer and the biggest investor of the non-oil sector of Azerbaijan Azercell Telecom LLC was founded in 1996. With 48% share of Azerbaijan"s mobile telecom market Azercell"s network covers 80% of the territory (excluding 20% of the occupied territories) and 99,8% of population of the country. Currently, 4,5 million subscribers choose Azercell services. Azercell has pioneered an important number of innovations in Azerbaijan, including GSM technology, advance payment system, mobile internet services, Metro coverage, 24/7 call centre service, 7 day/week Front Office service, M2M services, one-stop-shopping approach Azercell Express offices, Online Customer Care and Social Media Customer Care services, Mobile Customer Care office, mobile e-signature service "ASAN Imza" etc. Azercell deployed first 4G - LTE services in Azerbaijan in 2012. According to the results of mobile network quality surveys of Global Wireless Solutions company and international systems specialized in wireless coverage mapping such as "Opensignal" and "Testmy.net", Azercell"s network demonstrated the best results among the mobile operators of Azerbaijan. ®