With a history of 170 years, Turk Telekom experienced one of its most important developments in 2005, when 55 percent of the company’s shares were acquired by Oger Telecom. Acquisition Monthly, read by international investors, awarded the privatisation process related to the block sale of 55 percent of Turk Telekom shares with the “Award of the year on developing markets” in the field of M&A.
As a leading communication and convergence technology company in Turkey, Turk Telekom with its group companies provide national and international communication solutions customised for its users’ requirements and also integrated telecommunication services from PSTN and GSM to broadband internet.
As of March 2010, the group has 16.4 million fixed access lines, 6.4 million ADSL Connections and 11.7 million mobile subscribers. Group companies have a modern network infrastructure covering the whole country and offer a wide variety of services to residential and commercial customers all over Turkey.
Turk Telekom gives services in all areas of telecommunication together with its group companies TTNET, Avea, Argela, Innova, Sebit, Sobee and AssisTT. In 2009, Turk Telekom’s consolidated investment reached TL2.5bn.
Turk Telekom with its subsidiaries is one of the largest employers in Turkey with 34,000 employees from all over the country. It invests in human resources aiming to achieve a qualified labour force, not only to the telecommunications sector, but to Turkey as a whole.
A Turkish superbrand
While achieving great success with its value added products and services, Turk Telekom became one of the most valuable brands of Turkey; the company has won a number of prestigious awards from around Europe and Turkey.
Turk Telekom received two awards for 13 utility model and 236 trademark applications in the context of Ankara Patent Information Day between 2000 and 2009. Turk Telekom received awards in: “the second highest corporation that made an application between the years up 2000 to 2009 in the city of Ankara in utility model”; “the third highest corporation that made an application between the years up 2000 to 2009 in the city of Ankara” and in “brand” categories.
Turk Telekom was selected as “The Most Valuable Brand in Turkey” by Brandfinance research, published by Capital magazine in 2009. The company also took place in the “Global Best of Breed” list comprising 21 companies determined by Bank of America Merrill Lynch (Merrill Lynch), among 2,973 companies in 68 countries. Turk Telekom was the first Turkish company to enter this prestigious list. The company continued to strengthen its brand value when it was chosen as The Digital Love Brand by Digital Age magazine in 2009.
Turk Telekom is now participating in Superbrands 2009 selection thanks to these successes.
Corporate citizenship
What makes Turk Telekom a superbrand is not only its innovative approach but also its strong corporate citizenship. Turk Telekom adds value to the lives of its customers thanks to its products and services and has gathered all its social responsibility activities actualised throughout Turkey under the “Türkiye’ye Deger” brand.
Besides important social responsibility projects such as Turk Telekom Schools, Turk Telekom Internet Houses, Turk Telekom Sports Schools and e-invoice forests carried out nationally, Turk Telekom has gathered approximately 150 local social responsibility activities actualised by the city directorates under the “Türkiye’ye Deger” brand. Turk Telekom carries out its social responsibility investments primarily in education, sports and environment fields and has won more than 20 awards with the projects actualised during the last year.
Turk Telekom employees can directly attend these projects that are important for the company culture. Thousands of Turk Telekom employees participate in these social responsibility projects as volunteers.
Turk Telekom believes that sports play an important role in improving the communication skills of young people, and for the last 10 years it has supported the training of approximately 28,000 young athletes in 22 disciplines, including basketball, fencing, badminton, skiing and tennis. Turk Telekom Sports Schools provide training in 15 different disciplines, and its trainees have placed in competitions in more than 10 sports nationally and internationally, and been invited to national teams many times.
The group has actualised education projects with an aim to improve education infrastructure throughout Turkey and deploy access to information by eliminating the numeric difference in education. Within the scope of Turk Telekom Schools project, 72 education buildings have been put into service all around Turkey.
This project includes the construction of 76 buildings and upon the completion of the project, more than 30,000 students will have the opportunity to receive education in modern buildings.
Turk Telecom Group
Turk Telekom develops and exports technology to markets of its region together with its group companies TTNET, Avea, Argela, Innova, Sebit, Sobee and AssisTT.
Turkey’s leading broadband internet service provider TTNET offers state-of-the-art internet access to its customers through its extensive sales network. Offering services in 81 provinces of Turkey, TTNET’s product portfolio includes ADSL/VDSL2-fast internet access; TTNET WiFi abroad access service, jointly provided with WiFi wireless internet access and iPass; 3G mobile internet access services, jointly provided with Avea; and G.SHDSL, Metro Ethernet, ATM and Frame Relay internet access services.
Avea is the youngest company of the mobile communication industry, with 81.4 percent of its shares owned by Turk Telekom. With its new generation network, Avea continues to grow by increasing its corporate and retail services and the number of subscribers. Investing continuously in technology, infrastructure, management and human resources, the company maintains its target of improving service quality.
Innova IT Solutions Corp., a pioneering company of the IT solutions and services area, uses its engineering know-how to offer innovative and value-added technology solutions that guarantee improved efficiency and lower costs for companies in all industries from telecommunications to government, and from industry and delivery to finance.
A wholly-owned subsidiary of Turk Telekom, Argela Yazılım ve Bilisim Teknolojileri A.S has been producing innovative technologies and next generation solutions for telecom operators since 2004. With products currently used by many operators across the world, Argela reaches millions of subscribers through its solutions. The company also operates in Dubai through IVEA Software Solutions FZLLC, in which it has a 50 percent stake, and in the US through Argela USA, Inc, which it fully owns. Argela’s priority markets include the Balkans, Saudi Arabia and particularly India. The company also has customers in South Africa, Ukraine, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Georgia.
Joining the Turk Telekom family in 2007, Sebit made substantial worldwide progress in the field of generalising and new business model development, becoming one of the leading companies of the sector to innovate in the school application of educational technologies. Sebit offered a solution to the American market with the Adaptive Curriculum brand, which turned into an international achievement. And the Vitamin brand is regarded today as a telecom product, and telecom companies see Sebit’s products as an important opportunity for offering added-value services to their customers. The education software developed by Sebit creates an opportunity of equal education for everyone. It introduced the internet to Turkey’s children and ensures its correct use, with the motto “there is no education without internet”.
Although it is Turk Telekom’s youngest company, with a history of only two years, AssisTT is now one of the largest call centres in Turkey. Aiming to become a pioneering ‘Customer Satisfaction Centre’ in call centre services in Turkey, AssisTT also aspires to become one of the top 10 companies operating in this area in the EMEA region.
Value added service
Turk Telekom presented the first examples of its convergence products with Wirofon, which brings mobility to land lines, and Vitamin, a leading online education solution.
Wirofon is a system that allows users to make calls from anywhere abroad and be charged for them under their home or office line subscriptions. By using a Wi-Fi enabled mobile phone or any computer connected to the internet, customers can make calls over the web – from anywhere in the world – and be charged using their home line tariffs.
This technology is a good example of Turk Telekom’s improving service levels, aiming to provide its customers the opportunity and comfort of connecting anytime and anywhere. Wirofon has proved successful in the international arena, winning the “Best New Telecommunication Service of the Year” award in the CommsMEA Awards, which focuses on prominent Telecom operators in the Middle East and Africa region.
The video call technology of telecom, the Videofon, is developed by Turk Telekom and Argela engineers. Videofon service can be used by home or office telephones, and also payphones with multimedia. It is possible to browse the web, send e-mail and take photos during conversations when using Videofon technology.
Sebit, one of the subsidiaries of Turk Telekom, gained important successes abroad with its educational software named Vitamin. In November 2009, Sebit received for Vitamin the “Best Content Service” award at the World Communication Awards, the “Best Online Education Solution” award at the CODiE Awards with Adaptive Curriculum, the “Best Science and Mathematics Website Award” at EDDIE Awards organised by ComputED Learning Centre, and received the blue ribbon in the Best Business Development Communication Programme and Best New PR Product/Process/Service categories at the League of American Communication Professionals. Vitamin was also awarded a certificate of achievement in the Most Comprehensive Organisational Communication Programme and Best Corporate Communication / PR Programme categories.
The software has been exported to three different regions and been translated into English, Spanish and Arabic. The other subsidiary of TTNET began offering the TIVIBU Web Television service in February 2010 and reached more than 150,000 customers.
