TeliaSonera to Leave Georgian Market

TeliaSonera, the owner of Geocell, plans to increase focus on Europe and Sweden in order to create a new version of the company. The process has begun in order to decrease their presence in Eurasia with the plan being to eventually fully leave it, according to the official TeliaSonera website. The company owns Geocell, one of the largest telecommunication networks in Georgia.

According to the statement, since 2013 TeliaSonera has been focused on taking Eurasia to the next level. Substantial improvements have been made to areas such as coporate governance and sustainability. They believe that it is possible to do business in Eurasia that is both profitable and sustainable- however they also say they need to enter markets in a correct way.

“Thanks to two years of hard work to improve the Eurasian operations, not least from a corporate governance and sustainability perspective, we now have better and more well-managed companies which we believe others can successfully develop further,” TeliaSonera’s President and CEO Johan Dennelind stated.

He continued “we realise that this will be a complex task that will take time. We are conducting this process market by market as each country and operation has its unique situation, but the ambition is to eventually leave the entire region.”

The announcement states that in the rapidly changing telecommunications market, the management and board have decided to focus time and resources on developing the operations in Europe and Sweden.

There are rumours that Turkcell may be interested in acquiring Geocell.