Ahmet Tanyu, one of Turkey’s leading business figures, is now a resident of Georgia where he is the General Manager of the creative and highly successful Turkish-owned mobile phone company, Geocell.

Ahmet Tanyu, General Manager of Georgia’s Geocell, the mobile phone provider, is one of the most experienced international business executives operating in Georgia today, and he is an optimist, “For years and years business has suffered here, but now the real time is coming, to my mind, due to the pipeline projects, which will affect definitely the economy and because Georgia is located in the center of the Caucasus region.”

Besides timing and geography, Tanyu can point to the rapid growth of his own business, now with about 150,000 subscribers possibly tripling within two years. Georgia is one of those countries benefiting from the absence of wired telephones in the many rural parts of the nation. Quite a few of Geocell’s customers have only one telephone and that is a mobile phone. The cost of wiring up some of the mountainous and most rural agricultural areas had been prohibitive in the past. Now this skipping of a layer of technology—the wired system—is turning out to be an advantage to the mobile supplier.

Mr. Tanyu was part of one of Turkey’s largest import/export conglomerates for seventeen years, working all over Europe. Then, having been trained as an engineer, he joined the telecommunications revolution at the turn of the century, joining Fintur, which has numerous mobile phone systems in operation all over eastern and western Europe. Before moving to Tbilisi Tanyu helped manage Fintur mobile investments in Moldova, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan as well as Geocell. In Georgia, Fintur owns 83 percent of Geocell, which celebrated its 5th year of operation earlier in 2002.

Besides gaining new customers and keeping an eye on the ever expanding footpath of coverage (although this increases weekly, currently about 60 percent of Georgia’s geography is covered, including 76 percent of the population), Mr. Tanyu is particularly proud of the development of local talent. “Of our technical personnel 129 out of 133 people are Georgians. The human resource potential in this country makes us very happy.”

Asked about hurdles to overcome, Tanyu says, “Of course the major difficulty in this country is geography. The land here in Georgia is quite mountainous and coverage for the mobile sector is not easy to achieve.” Besides getting the full country covered for service, there is the problem of a relatively low income level in Georgia. Without sufficient disposal income the consumer is not going to become a subscriber.

Tanyu is a realist, “When we compare the 8 percent penetration here with other countries, Georgia falls far behind. For example 82 percent of the eligible population of Finland has mobile service and the number is 27 percent in Turkey. Of course income levels in those countries, and purchasing power, is much greater. But this gives us much room for growth and Georgia’s time is coming and I’m pleased that we are here to help.”