The first Cosmote offers to include 3G services, which willenable the operator to sell products as Internet services andmobile e-mail or video calls will be launched in the first half ofnext year, once the operator has completed Zapp's integration, saysMichael Tsamaz, the chief executive officer of Greek group Cosmote.Cosmote will this way be able to compete on equal footing withlocal market leaders Orange and Vodafone, which launched 3Gservices in 2006 and 2005, respectively.
"I would expect that in six months from now, we would offer thesame products competitors offer in the Romanian market. I cannottell you now when it is going to be (February or April), but we areworking very hard on this," Tsamaz said.
The integration of mobile Internet in Cosmote's offers will notlead to aggressive offers likely to create price wars with theother players, Tsamaz says. "In the end, the price war is not inthe benefit of the industry or the consumer."
The Greek group has invested 678 million euros in its Romanianbranch over the last four years, Tsamaz says. However, even thoughthe company has become number three on the market with almost 7million customers, unless it had started to provide mobile Internetservices, revenues would not have gone anywhere but down onlong-term. "That is why some time ago we decided that we had tosolve this problem and that is why we went ahead with acquiringZapp," Cosmote CEO says explaining this year's deal with Telemobilworth 207 million euros. "The aim is that the integration will befinalised in the first eight months of the year (2010 i.e.), andprobably after the first six months we will operate under one brandand as one company. "
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