Budapest, December 30, 2004

Emitel, that offers telecommunications services in 84 towns in the southern part of Bács-Kiskun county, celebrates its tenth anniversary. In connection with the anniversary Béla Kozma, Emitel’s CEO summarized the experiences.

Emitel celebrates its anniversary: it is ten years that the Israeli-Hungarian joint venture started provision of telecommunications service in 84 towns in the southern part of Bács Kiskun county. At that time more than 8,000 of the 36,000 subscribers were connected to the network via manual exchange.
Béla Kozma CEO said that Emitel’s track records were determined by the history of domestic telephony. Development and automation of the company’s network started in 1995, the customer waiting list was eliminated in two years and by 1999 the highest customer base was reached (86 072). This was followed by a slow decrease, today the fully-owned Matáv subsidiary serves 77 to 79 thousand customers.
It is not easy to set off the 4 to 5 thousand lines canceled each year. Particularly because in Emitel’s service area with dominantly agricultural production, sporadic housing and high unemployment the per capita GDP is just HUF 1 million (the national average is HUF 1.4 million, while in the Transdanubia it is HUF 2.3 million). Although these figures would reflect reduced purchasing power the company can fulfill its ADSL sales plans. Currently fast internet access is available in 79 of the 84 towns.
The company was producing positive EDIBLE since 1996 and balance sheet profit since 1998, the company’s headcount was around 300 for years without any significant fluctuation.
According to the CEO's statement the company is making efforts to forestall the competitors' advance. They visited their business and institutional customers to indicate that Emitel wants to participate in the future competition for their orders. To enhance its market role and efficiency Emitel introduces new products and tariff packages, to retain its residential customers a churn management program was developed.