With its investments in Turkey and close regions in the sectors of energy, construction, finance, textile and media, Çalık Holding celebrated the first anniversary of its sector leader telecommunications company in Albania, Eagle Mobile.
Çalık Holding has become one of the main players of the communication sector of Albania by acquiring the biggest internet provider of Albania and its GSM license in 2007. After that, Çalık Holding invested more than 50 million Euros to Eagle Mobile which was established to service by using GSM license with the aim of making Eagle Mobile the most favorite and preferred GSM operator in Albania. Group has reached a number of 380 thousand subscribers in 11 months after completing the entire infrastructure operations in a very short term like 6 months and building 300 new base stations. Eagle Mobile, the first operator that offers Albanian people the opportunities like EDGE and MOBILE TV as in the developed European countries with its 97% service area, has differentiated itself with its appropriate, flexible tariff alternatives that address every region of the country.
As a result of all these successful efforts, Eagle Mobile has been awarded "Company of the Year" by the country's largest political and economic magazine, KLAN. Eagle Mobile that cares social life as well as economic life has succeeded more than 10 social responsibility projects in 2008. The company, this year, is sustaining its social operations with a project of building a foundation that supports the orphans and teenagers that don’t have financial feasibilities.
The largest Internet provider of Albania
Çalık Holding, which rapidly maintains its investments and follows up the new opportunities in Albania with its region, provided significant contributions to the economy of Albania over the last period. Albtelecom, the largest fixed line and internet provider of Albania, is increasing its market efficiency by individual and corporate customers each passing day with its high service quality, continuity, powerful technical infrastructure, and special campaigns. The company together with the market leadership in fixed line services and infrastructure operations in the urban regions also includes the feature of being the only operator that has active market power. Albtelecom has proved its leadership by increasing the number of ADSL subscribers to 18.110 in December 2008, from 1.500 in August 2008. Albtelecom, which also wins the tenders of government institutions, increased income from international traffic to 28,4 million Euros in 2008 with 14% of increase, after 24,9 million Euros in 2007.
Another Çalık Holding investment in Albania: Banking
As the first commercial bank in Albania, Banka Kombetare Tregtare (BKT) has been gaining loyal customers of Albanians from Albania and abroad with its experience and high quality service since 1920’s. BKT, which sustains its activities in line with risk sensitive policies, is today one of the banks in Albania with the highest liquidity. The total assets of BKT, with USD 1.1 billion deposit, is USD 1.2 billion as of year end 2008. BKT is now operating with its 67 branches in total which 55 of them are active in Albania and 12 branches were opened in Kosovo after September 2007. BKT, which is selected best bank of Albania twice, is aiming to develop its position in Albanian economy by marketing its service and products more widely with its new, strengthened management structure after being acquired by Çalık Holding.
“Our Interest for Investment Opportunities Continue”
Chairman of Çalık Holding, Ahmet Çalık expressed that the investments made in Albania are the projects with given value and strategically importance. “Albania is a special country for us. We evaluate here as an expansion that will present new opportunities for Europe. As Çalık group, we are focusing on especially telecom and finance sectors. With the aim of giving more quality service, we are attaching importance to both sectors of finance, energy and telecom and technology with human resources investments. The investments we made are an indication of it. Our investment researches about Albania and neighborhood countries continue.” Çalık Holding Chairman Ahmet Çalık said. Çalık also stated that he has the honor to be appreciated by Albanian public and Albanian government for the investments in BKT, Eagle Mobile, and Albtelecom.
“We’ve been appraising all the investment opportunities”
Ahmet Çalık expressed that the investments in Albania will continue despite the global crisis all around the world and in line with the investment objectives, he said: In recent years, Albania has taken very important steps for the improvement of the investment environment and still continues its operations. I firmly believe that these improvements will benefit in due course. As Çalık Group, we are one of the leading players in sectors of finance, energy, construction, media and textile in Turkey and its region. Therefore, we’ve been appraising all the investment opportunities including the sectors which we operate beside telecommunication and finance and we will continue to appraise.