Iran declared that the Irancell consortium led by Turkcell won the license bid to establish and manage the first national private GSM Service. Iranian Telecommunication and Information minister Barat Qanbari said that Ericsson is also in the consortium that won the bid for the establishment of the second national GSM service.
Irancell consortium led by Turkcell will be the second GSM service provider in Iran. There was a single state-run GSM provider in Iran that has a 67 million population. The existence of 3.1 GSM subscribers nationwide created great aspiration in International companies. Iranian state gets $425 million profit yearly from GSM services.
It is estimated that the establishment of the first private GSM Company will increase ten times the existing number of subscribers. It has not been clarified how much the consortium led by Turkcell will pay to the Iranian government for the GSM license.
Turkey's largest GSM operator Turkcell has increased its domestic subscribers from 15.7 million to 21 million in 2003 with a ! rise. Turkcell that has more than $2 billion profit in 2003 has international roaming agreement with 352 GSM operators covering 141 countries. Turkey's first company in Dow Jones Turkcell has an interest in various international bids for GSM services other than Iran.
Turkcell and Ericsson had send support for Earthquake victims in Iran.
