Two out of every five calls from mobile phones in Spain are made from the province of Málaga during the holidays season, according to the data provided by Telefonica and published by the telecommunications operator teleconnect.
Created in 1995 Teleconnect Comunicaciones, S.A. is an operator for landlines and Internet access with wide international experience which currently develops its business in Spain, concentrating its activities exclusively in coastal tourist areas such as the Costa del Sol and the Islands as an alternative to Telefonica.
The leaders of this multinational, whose head office is in Marbella, have aimed since 1998 to open the market in coastal areas, where they also offer prepaid cards for mobile phones at very competitive prices, prices aimed at tourist and residents who can use them from any type of mobile phone when they travel outside their home countries. <>, said Nicholas Bruemmer, CEO of the company.
The seven coastal and island provinces where Teleconnect has planned to compete in the next two years have a business volume << only 10 percent lower than Madrid and Barcelona together>>. The islands and coasts are <> Bruemmer affirmed.
Since its commercial beginnings in Marbella in August this year, Teleconnect has invoiced 500 million pesetas in the Costa del Sol alone, which represents > according to its managements team, along with a firm welcome among users.
The company was founded five years ago as a branch of a British operator and is now clearly Spanish, with initial minority-holding Canadian and Swiss investors.
This has meant that Telefonica has only lost 6.8 percent of the whole market in land-based phones – after entry into the market of the other operators – two years after the liberalization of the telecommunications market, while in European countries such as Germany or France operators holding the monopoly lost 40 and 45 percent respectively in the first year. The CEO of the aforesaid operator moreover considers that <>, mentioning the specific case of Supercable in Andalusia, a company that has its own development plan.
Nicholas Bruemmer estimates that sales will reach more than 90 million euros in the 2003 financial year, with 140,000 customers, of which 60 percent of income <>.
The estimated profit <> is situated at 10.4 million euros for the 2003 financial year, from 7.9 in the 2001 period and 0.8 in the period respectively.