Wednesday, July 22 2015 14:22

 Orange Group has launched negotiations with Ucom to sell the 100% of Orange Armenia's shares, Orange Armenia Chief Executive Officer Francis Gelibter officially said at a press conference in Yerevan on July 22.    

He thinks that the positive outcome of the Orange-Ucom negotiations will allow retaining and uniting the potential of the highly skilled employees of Orange Armenia (nearly 500 people), as well as the innovation technical capacity. As a result, 650 thsd subscribers of Orange Armenia will be provided with advanced and high-quality convergent services, he added. The Orange Armenia CEO noted that the subscribers will also enjoy a convenient combination of various services and the full spectrum of telecommunication services from one reliable operator. The Armenian market has not had such an opportunity before, he added.    

To recall, in 2013 Ucom was granted a license to provide 4G mobile communication services. In 2016 the company is going to launch high-quality services through LTE. Ucom built an optical-fiber network and has been providing internet, TV and fixed telephony services through one channel. As of June 2015, the company had over 100 thsd subscribers and over 800 employees. Cooperating with the largest global companies, Ucom has managed to gain stable positions on the Armenian telecommunication market.             
According to the Ranking of Retail and Service Outlets of Armenia by the Agency of Rating Marketing Information (ArmInfo), at the yearend of 2013 the loss of Orange Armenia totaled 3.8 billion AMD, and the accumulated loss - 12.4 billion AMD. At the yearend of 2013, the ROI and ROE of Orange Armenia amounted to negative 8% and negative 10%, respectively. As regards Ucom, its net profit at the yearend of 2013 amounted to 884.2 million AMD (almost 7-fold year- over-year growth (from the negative level). At the same time, Ucom's ROI and ROE made up 3.4% and 5.4%, respectively. Orange Armenia has been operating on the Armenian market since 5 November 2005, and Ucom was founded in 2007.