“3G technology will stir the sector” 

Saying they are working with a vision to become a global communication and technology company, Süreyya Ciliv adds, “3G will not only introduce Turkish people to more advanced products and services, but also make important contributions to the Turkish economy in different fields.” 

 Turkcell is mentioned in various “the best” lists together with giant global brands. Is Turkcell becoming a “global giant” or does it plan to have a Turkey-based future? 

We are working with a vision to become a global communication and technology company. We can not have narrow targets in a world where information and communication technologies change life so dramatically. We have made a significant progress in our works toward that purpose, but we know we must add new achievements to our track record and work hard to obtain these successes. Being the only Turkish company to be listed both on the ISE (Istanbul Stock Exchange) and on the NYSE, Turkcell’s market capitalization reached 28 billion YTL in 2007 increasing from 15 billion YTL thereby growing by 85% on YTL basis. As a result, we came to have the largest market capitalization in Turkey. According to the ‘Businessweek Infotech 100’ list in which publicly traded communication and technology companies are classified by Standard&Poors data, we ranked 25^th this year. We ranked 5^th among the European-based companies in the list. Besides, we got ahead of such technology giants as Cisco, HP, LG, Samsung, Intel and SAP. 

Getting ahead of the global giants as Turkcell of Turkey has naturally made us proud, but we will not reduce our speed. We want to make a difference with our investments in communication and technology adding new ones to our pioneer services such as Mobilİmza and TonlaKazan which are given as examples in the global GSM sector. 

Following upon the news that overseas acquisitions will be focused on, that there is a desire to expand in the Turkic Republics and in the Middle East and that the Belarusian market will be entered, can we say that Turkcell has placed its aggressive acquisition policy at the top of its agenda?

 When analyzing overseas markets we look primarily at rational opportunities that can enable us to create added value and we evaluate investment potentials according to a complex method which is based on the grading of certain criteria. Our investment policy which we maintain by keeping in mind this framework has not changed much recently. We are holding talks with the shareholders of the mobile operator BeST which operates in the Republic of Belarus to buy the majority shares of the company. In addition to that we are holding talks also to buy Syriatel, Syria’s mobile operator. Apart from these, we try to realize opportunities that can arise within our expansion strategy especially in the neighboring regions. 

Can mobile phone users in Turkey follow the technology as those in the developed countries? What does the result mean for your company which defines itself as a “technology company”?  

Mobile phone users in Turkey can quickly adapt to new technologies. This is a huge advantage for a technology company like Turkcell. However, there is another side to the coin: Turkey is the only country among the EU members or EU candidate countries which does not have 3G. We have been too late in this regard. We insist that 3G is the technology which will integrate Turkey into the future of mobile communication. 3G will not only introduce Turkish people to more advanced products and services, but also make significant contributions to the Turkish economy in information management, use of technology, export, employment and qualified workforce. In addition to the activity to be observed in the sector with transition to 3G, domestic software and infrastructure sectors will grow and local companies that produce content will find a brand new market. At Turkcell we will go on introducing the newest technologies to Turkish people. 

With the public offering of Türk Telekom, a second company from the communication sector was also listed on the stock exchange after many years. To what do you attribute the fact that the sector is not sufficiently represented on the stock exchange?  

We consider the public offering that came as a result of the positive change after the privatization of Türk Telekom as a rather useful development. Public offering is without doubt an important element for the institutionalization of companies. Besides, we believe Türk Telekom’s public offering will help the competition in the market to become transparent. We hear that Avea also plans to go public in the coming years. 

Turkcell was awarded IPRA (International Public Relations Association) Golden World Award for its communication activities in the "financial services and investor relations" category. Can this award be evaluated as a reflection of Turkcell’s corporate governance understanding? 

117 finalists competed in 28 categories in the finals in this year's IPRA Golden World Awards while 404 entrants from 52 countries made the initial bid. The IPRA Golden World Awards are one of the world's most prestigious in the field of public relations. We got happy to rank first in the category “translating company performance into value" done in the context of investor relations. We have obtained this success with our corporate governance principles adopted for turning strong operational performance into market value, with investor relations we have implemented toward this purpose and with our careful communication efforts. Our corporate governance philosophy is based on sharing information equally and on time in a transparent way. 

What are the targets Turkcell has set for the next 5 years? 

Our goal is to become a communication and technology company that exports mobile communication solutions to the world. We are carrying on our efforts toward innovative solutions on the one hand at the ‘Turkcell Teknoloji’ and on the other hand at different R&D platforms through local and international partnerships. We want to increase the number of projects we participate within the EU context and launch new projects that we will lead.