Tele 2 – russia
Tele 2 is the Swedish telecommunications company, known as cellular discounter. The company's headquarters is located in Stockholm.
OWNERSHIP
The company was founded by Jan Stenbeck in late 1970 as a subsidiary of the group of companies Investment AB Kinnevik (Sweden). At that time it was called «Comvik». In 1988, the company received a license to provide mobile services in the format of GSM, and four years later launched its first network - in Sweden. In 1993 the modern name Tele2 came. In 1996, the company began its expansion outside of Sweden, from 1997 to 2004, expanding the network in Norway, Estonia, Lithuania, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Latvia and other European countries. In 2000 the company received the first 3G-license, in 2009, began building networks 4G. Since 2001, Tele2 developed as a mobile operator in Russia.
In October 2007, it became known that the company Tele2 sold its offices in Spain and Italy to Vodafone for 775 million euros.
The largest shareholders of the company is Investment AB Kinnevik (47,9% of the voting shares), the remaining shares are in free float
In March 2011, the company Tele2 has announced the launch date of its operations in the Republic of Kazakhstan. Tele2 mobile network started in Aktobe region on April 24. In May and June 2011 in the coverage area includes Tele2 Uralsk, Almaty, Astana and Shymkent, with their surrounding areas. At the moment, 3G-network Tele2 covers all regional centers of Kazakhstan.
Tele2 Holding as of 2010, works in 11 European countries: Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia and Kazakhstan, providing services to mobile and fixed communications, Internet access and cable TV to 30 million customers. Market strategy - mobile discounter.
As we can see from the information above, Tele 2 company is really active with its aims toward internationalization and actually already operates in 11 countries. We will consider Russian case as an example of its international strategy.
INTERNASIONALIZATION
Country |
Russia |
Year of entry |
2001 |
Industry/ business area |
telecommunication |
Entry mode |
Through strategic acquisitions of the mobile companies in different regions of Russia.
|
Motives |
Huge market with huge perspectives. Nowadays it is the biggest market for the company. It is also growing really fast. |
Firm specific advantages used on the foreign market |
The only company with a mobile discounter strategy positioning. |
First mover or follower |
Follower, but no other foreigner mobile companies has successfully entered Russian market |
Type of state involvement in the process of internationalization |
No, it was only an agreement but not an FDI or export. |
Evaluation of the success of the internationalization |
As we can see, Russian market of mobile communications is growing rapidly. The price of entrance was significant for the Tele2 company but its share of the market in growing very fast, new regions are being covered and, as it was already mentioned before, it become the biggest market for the company. Tele 2 is the only foreign company that quite successfully operates on the Russian mobile market (even being unable to get a license here in the format of the connection 3G). In March 2012, Tele2 had tested 4G in Pskov and Omsk. As of early December 2011 Tele2 is the fourth in the number of mobile phone operators in Russia: the subscriber base of the country at that time was 20.5 million. Russia has become the main market for the Tele2, which provided more than half of all subscribers for the year 2010 and 34.7% (the highest percentage among all countries) EBITDA. Russian branch of the company's revenue in 2010 has increased by 35.5% to $ 1.6 billion and EBITDA - by 44.5% to $ 555 million. |