Business consultancy project

Bakcell LLC

Bakcell LLC was founded as a joint venture between the Azerbaijani Ministry of Communications and Israeli GTIB in early 1994. As the first cell phone operator Bakcell LLC launched cellular communication services meeting GSM international standards in Azerbaijan.
After the complete privatization of Bakcell LLC in 2004, due to the revised market strategy, market share of Bakcell LLC started to increase. Bakcell LLC fulfilled substantial investments in the enhancement of network and software development in Y 2007. For instance, 8,755 million AZN amount was spent on billing and CRM base. Moreover, around 22 million spendings were made for network expansion assisted by Nokia Siemens.
According to the CEO of Bakcell LLC, the total investment of 30,755 million AZN was paid back with the increase of both subscribers’ quantity for 0,6 million and market share for 11% reaching 34% consequently (Bakcell, 2018).
Moreover, in Y2013 Bakcell LLC succeeded to increase the number of subscribers to 3 million, a 1 million growth in comparison with Y 2007. Innovations and improvements adopted by the company improved opportunities and amplified market penetration. Nowadays, networking coverage of Bakcell LLC is 93% of Azerbaijan territories with the number of subscribers comprising 3,1 million.
The product range is also expanding, three new tariff plans have been implemented: CIN, Class pre-paid, and post-additionally, Bakcell LLC tries to attain the market share by the low-cost pricing strategy. In order to sustain competitiveness, Bakcell LLC decrease pricing, and as contra attack, Azercell urged to shrink the gross margin as well. Nevertheless, the price range applied by all three operators is very close, according to the Brand Equity Research Analysis which was done by International Research group in April 2019 Bakcell has been considered low price setter according to the compatibility analysis.
Meantime, Bakcell LLC also intends to sustain competitiveness by extending product ranges and added the OTT content services to the product portfolio. Such as video and music streaming, game portal, and online payment services.
Video streaming became possible due to the collaboration with Megogo company, Bakcell LLC users can enjoy the licensed movies, cartoons, and other videos.
Music streaming – Bakcell LLC launched My Music Cloud service. This service provides the possibility for sharing and enjoying music across handsets without any charge.
Game portal – java games and other entertaining applications, news, etc. are available from the wap portal. Online payment services – the opportunity of balance increase via the website of Bakcell LLC and/or partners-banks.
“Ulduzum” loyalty program is also available for the consumers, and they can enjoy regular discounts and marketing campaigns of the Bakcell LLC partners (shops, restaurants, etc.).
One of the recent partners of Bakcell LLC became Premium Bank aiming at expanding the cooperation activities, including new projects between the companies. (Bakcell LLC, 2019)
According to the interview of the CEO of Bakcell LLC, in 2018, huge investments were fulfilled by the Company, and Bakcell LLC has experienced a 5% growth of revenue in 2018. The continuing growth is expected for this year due to the administrative measures triggering improvement of living standards of the population and for 2019-2020. (AHK Azerbaijan, 2019)

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