Mark Hauf, president of Metromedia, appointed you in March 2004 at the head of MagtiCom. Therefore, this company created by relatives of Eduard Shevardnadze is today managed by a Briton. Is it reflecting the general trend in Georgia? Or is it rather a policy specific to your company ?

The company has always been a joint venture, 49% of the company being American and 51% being Georgian. And although on the Georgian side, there is a family relationship with Shevardnadze, the company has never been part of any official government structure, and also it has never been under the government influence. The American part is actually listed on the US stock echange.

As for the policy of the company, it did not change since the Rose Revolution. In 2004, Magti has shown the best results we ever had, when we did not change neither the name, nor the brand, nor our commercial strategy.

On MagtiCom website, one can read that since April 2001, your GSM signal reaches Sukhumi. Today do you cover the whole country, that is to say within the borders recognized by the international community – Abkhazia and South Ossetia included?

I could not tell you exactly where our base stations are. But certainly the main part of Georgia is completely covered. By definition it is a radial network, and the range of our base station is 70km. Besides all mobile operators go through the borders, into other countries. I do not know specifically what is our coverage in this specific territory, or indeed even in Turkey or in Armenia.

What is your market share in Georgia, especially as compared to your competitor Geocell ?

Magti is the market leader for mobile telephony in Georgia with 550 000 customers, which represents a 65% market share. There is just under a million mobile phones in Georgia, which makes it a 20% penetration, therefore we still have a high growth margin.

The market is growing quickly, as well as investments. Our competitor, Geocell, is a Turkish company, so it is a good example where foreign investments in Georgia are successfull.

Furthermore the mobile telephony market is leading the telephony market in the country. In Georgia, the fixed line telephony is less than mobile telephony. So Magti is actually now the biggest phone company in any measure at all in Georgia. And this is quite a responsablitity for the country.

Generally speaking, the quality of our services is trailing the European market by a few months (pictures, video, music, Internet). And indeed this shows that in Georgia, even if there are some difficult economic tasks ahead of them, the telephony infrastructure is already very good.

What future developments do you plan for your company ?

I think that Georgia at the moment is clearly a very good market. In numerous fields, there is a load of investments. So it is credible to think that the mobile telephony market is still going to grow. If you look at countries that you might compare with Georgia, the penetration level is of 50%, now for Russia it is of 60% with its 75 million suscribers.

In 2005, we want to keep on introducing new services, while making sure that the core network meets the anticipated market growth.