Fourfold increase in one year for Zapp

Zapp, the only CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) mobile telephony operator in Romania, has managed to increase its turnover in dollars four times in one year. Whereas Zapp’s revenues in 2002 had reached $13 million, the 2003 revenues amounted to more than $50 million, Cuneyt Turktan, Zapp’s president, told Ziarul Financiar in an exclusive interview.

Zapp’s 2004 goal is an $80-$90 million turnover and 300,000 clients.

“We are not making net income yet, which is only natural for a communications company in its first years in business. The most important thing now is to boost turnover. If considering the EBITDA, we may say we broke even. We will probably post net income by the end of next year,” Turktan says.

The operator is investing $50 million in Romania this year and next year’s plans see $30 million scheduled for the time being.

Most of this year’s investment will be directed to boosting infrastructure capacity and expanding the service area. “We have already begun investing in the third infrastructure expansion stage, so that the CDMA technology will cover the entire Romania by yearend,” Turktan said.

The company is getting ready to also launch a new concept for its data services this year. Based on the EV-DO technology, which allows for much faster data transfers via the CDMA mobile phone than at the moment, the operator will commercially release the 2.4 Mbps data transfer services in November.

To make it possible to access the Internet at 2.4 Mbps, Zapp will launch a modem on the market for users to connect their laptops or desktop computers to the Internet. Those interested in this service only will have special offers available from Zapp. “The 2.4 Mbps data package will be cheaper than what is provided in the voice packages now. First of all, the speed will be greater, so that you will be spending less time online downloading similar files,” Turktan says.

The user will be billed for the time spent online, and not for the actual amount of data transferred as other mobile telephony operators do.

The 2.4 Mbps modem will allow connecting only one computer. If a company wants to connect 20 laptops it will have to buy one modem for each of them. There are no hubs available at the moment to connect the computers accessing the Internet this way into a network.

While at CERF 2004 (Computer and Electronics Romanian Fair, held between April 20-24 this year) on Tuesday, Zapp also launched its first mobile terminal that sports a colour display and is BREW enabled, Z710. The phone comes with several software applications pre-installed, such as games, weather forecasts or business information.
iuliana.cerchez@zf.ro