FATTOUCH INVESTMENT HAS NO PLANS TO SELL VIVACELL NETWORK
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Friday, 13 July 2007
The owner of Karabakh Telecom (K-Telecom’s) Lebanese parent company,
the Fattouch Investment Group, says it has no intention of exiting the
Armenian telecoms market, scotching an earlier press rumour suggesting
that Russia’s largest mobile operator MTS had offered to purchase
the company’s VivaCell mobile network. In a meeting held yesterday
to celebrate the second anniversary of VivaCell’s launch, Pierre
Fattouch said the Lebanese group had already invested about USD340
million in its Armenian wireless network and had plans to further
expand its operations in the country. Fattouch also revealed that
VivaCell has broken the one-million barrier for mobile subscribers,
giving it a commanding 70% share of the local wireless market. ‘The
one million is just the beginning and we are actively expanding our
network to a capacity of 1.5 million subscribers as well as preparing
the launch of third-generation services,’ he said.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms database, Armenia’s second
mobile network operator K-Telecom entered the market on 1 July 2005
when it launched commercial GSM-900/1800 services under the trademark
VivaCell.
K-Telecom was licensed by the Armenian government on 4 November 2004,
with the state issuing no official explanation as to why it awarded
the USD7 million wireless concession without a competitive tender. The
arrival of competition led to an explosion in mobile phone use in
the country as fierce competition between ArmenTel and VivaCell
dramatically reduced the hitherto high cost of mobile services.