Turkcell pleased with growth

Turkey’s largest mobile operator Turkcell says it added 843,000 net new subscribers in the first quarter to take its total customer base to 28.74 million. It now has 23.27 million pre-paid users and 5.47 million subscribers with post-paid contracts, with 89% of new customers choosing pre-paid packages. The firm says aggressive competition in the Turkish market led to an increase in its churn rate to 3.51%, from 2.86% in the previous quarter. Turkcell CEO, Muzaffer Akpinar, commented: “We are pleased with the growth trends and we believe we are well positioned to meet upcoming challenges in our market.” According to the GlobalComms profile of Turkey’s mobile market, Turkcell claims around 63% of all the country’s cellular subscribers, with Telsim taking 21% and Avea 16%.