Yesterday the price packages of the third operator, which bids to win the telecommunication tender, were opened in the RA Ministry of Transport and Communication. The representatives of all the three companies, who were competing for the tender, were present at the ceremony. According to that the French Orange company had made the biggest bid, 51.5 million euros. By the way, the proposals of the three companies which passed the prequalification stage were unveiled on October 6. The Swedish Tele-2 company bid 45.6 million euros, and Digicell CEO Blackrock Communications, an English and Irish consortium, bid 31.66 million euros. Thus, the winner of the tender for the third mobile operator in Armenia will be officially announced in three days despite the fact that the Orange Telecom has offered the highest price. Gurgen Sargsyan, the RA Minister of Transport and Communications, stated at the briefing after unsealing tender packages of the three pretender companies. France Telecom was founded in 1988; it has 170 million customers in 30 countries of the world, of which 11 million on the mobile telephony market. The company has 187 thousand employees all over the world. The Orange brand of the company ranks 50 in the world, its value is 14 billion dollars, and has risen from the ranking 67 in 2007. The company’s consolidated sales in 2007 totaled 52.9 billion euros, and the profit was 4.6 billion euros. The company ranks three among mobile operators by the volume of consolidated sales, and four by capitalization of the market. The manager of communications of the company Bertrand Deronchaine presented those data to Lragir.am. Let’s mention that the winning company must pay the whole amount of the bid immediately in a full amount. If that doesn’t happen the next competing company wins the bid. In this case the Swedish company will win if the French company fails to pay the whole amount. The winner will receive the license on December 25, after which the company may start to operate. According to Sargsyan most probably approximately in 6 months the third operator will start to offer its services to its customers.
