'Turkey competes with world IT giants'

By Gokhan Ergocun

ANKARA (AA) - Turkey's IT sector, which has been making leaps and bounds in such areas as the 4.5G cell network, is competing with international giants, according to Kaan Terzioglu, the CEO of Turkey's leading GSM operator Turkcell.

"Discussions for 5G networks began in Turkey before the rest of the world, and Turkey is far ahead of the international curve," he told Anadolu Agency, referring to fifth-generation mobile wireless standard technology.

He stressed that Turkcell was among the leading global firms setting the 5G standards.

Turkcell is focusing its investments on digital services, which represent 80 percent of the firm's total revenues, he said.

Turkcell is to release new services, such as payment and messaging applications, in the near future and is expected to add new countries included Germany and Moldova to its international operating service, he underlined.

He said Turkcell would also focus on finance, energy, education and medicine technologies.

"Turkcell performs well as the world's fastest growing telecommunications company," he highlighted.

The firm's growth rate was 23.4 percent in 2017 as its total revenues amounted to 17.63 billion Turkish liras (around $4.83 billion) and its net profits 2.48 billion liras (around $679.45 million).

Turkey is the most productive country in the telecommunications area, he said, addimg: "While the country's inflation rate remains at double-digit level, its telecommunication inflation rate was minus 0.99 percent."

Turkcell, which has released the search engine Yaani recently, became the second-largest application developer worldwide in the applications market, after Google, he had said in a news conference last week.

Mentioning the company's role in Turkey's first domestically produced car, he said Turkcell would share its knowledge on artificial intelligence and robotic technologies.

"We aim to support the car with our research and development power and technology," he said.

Turkey's leading companies Anadolu Group, BMC, Kiraca Holding, Turkcell, and Zorlu Holding will jointly manufacture Turkey's first domestically made car.

Turkcell spearheaded GSM-based mobile communication in Turkey when it started operations in 1994.

Since then, it has continuously expanded its services based on mobile, audio and data communication.