Turkcell

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Company background
2 Coverage area
3 Hazır Kart
4 Sponsorship
5 References

Turkcell

Type	Public
Founded	1994
Headquarters	Istanbul, Turkey
Industry	Mobile telecommunications
Products	Mobile phone services, mobile phone related goods
Website	turkcell.com.tr

Turkcell (NYSE: TKC) is a mobile phone operator in Turkey, currently the country's largest. With nearly 30 million customers, it has a market share approaching 60 percent.

[edit] Company background

In February 1994, Turkcell started Turkey's first GSM network. As of June 30, 2005, Turkcell provided services to 25.6 million subscribers. Its competitors are Telsim (purchased by Vodafone in December, 2005) and Avea.

Turkcell is the first Turkish company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), where its shares have been traded since July 11, 2000 along with trading on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (IMKB).

Turkcell's shareholder structure is as follows: 35.28% is held by the Çukurova Group, 42.09% by Sonera Holding, 3.07% by M.V. Group, 2.01% by other, and the free float is 17.55%.

Turkcell also provides GSM services internationally. It has 4.2 million subscribers via Fintur and its affiliates in partnership with TeliaSonera in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Moldova, as of March 31, 2005.

[edit] Coverage area

Turkcell provides coverage of an area that, as of March 31, 2005, includes 100% of the population living in cities of 10,000 or more people and 99.89% of the population living in cities of 5,000 or more people, 95.91% of the total population, and 75.26% of Turkey's land area.

Turkcell has international roaming agreements with 503 operators in 192 countries as of June 16, 2006. It claims to have more international GPRS roaming agreements than any other operator (203 operators in 81 countries as of August 5, 2005).

[edit] Hazır Kart

In March 1999, Turkcell launched a prepaid service named "Hazır Kart" (Ready Card in English) for subscribers with lower spending levels, or who preferred to have more incoming than outgoing calls. Hazır Kart subscribers have access to all Turkcell's global GSM services.

[edit] Sponsorship

Turkcell has been the "Official Communication Sponsor" of the national football and basketball teams since 2002. It also sponsors 14 of the 18 football teams in the Turkish Turkcell Super League. The "Turkcell Football Awards" project was initiated in 2003 to encourage "fair play" by awarding athletes who show fairness, impartiality, and solidarity.

Turkcell also sponsors the Istanbul International Film Festival and co-sponsors the Istanbul International Jazz Festival. Since 1999, Turkcell has supported the restoration of the ancient city walls in Bodrum. The last phase of the project, the restoration of an ancient theater, was completed in June 2003.

Turkcell has also continued to sponsor the Bilişim CeBIT event, one of the major information technology fairs in Europe, for the eighth time in 2005.

Turkcell's main educational project, "Contemporary Girls of Contemporary Turkey", which started in 2000, grants scholarships to 5,000 young women in less developed parts of the country. The project received international recognition in June 2001, when it won the UK "Institute of Public Relations Excellence Award" and the "Crystal Obelisk Award" from the Foundation of Women Executives in Public Relations in New York in 2002.