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A French telecommunications operator is well on track to launch the third mobile phone network in Armenia later this year. The entrance of one of Europe’s largest telecom companies into Armenia is expected to stimulate an even stiffer competition among the operators on the market and consequently result in less expense and better-quality services.

Representatives of Orange-Armenia yet refuse to name the specific date for the start of operations in Armenia, but they give assurances that the market will surely get its third mobile phone operator by the end of the year.

France Telecom’s mobile phone unit, Orange, won an international tender for the right to launch and operate the third Armenian wireless network last October. It paid 50 million euros for the license to become a potential competitor of the subsidiaries of Russia’s two largest wireless operators, Beeline and MTS.

Orange is France Telecom’s key brand that delivers mobile phone and internet services. As of June 30, the Group had a customer base of 186 million customers in 32 countries. The company’s 2008 consolidated sales made a total of 53.5 billion euros (25.5 billion euros for the first half of 2009).

Talking to ArmeniaNow, Orange-Armenia public relations officer Lilit Martirosyan said she could not reveal the details of the planned new services that the company is going to deliver to Armenia customers as she called this information “commercial secret”.

“But I can say that we will have quite interesting offers both for mobile phone services and the internet,” said Martirosyan.

By the end of the year France Telecom plans to make an investment of $81 million in its Armenia operations.

“Sixty percent of the sum has already been invested,” said the company’s PR officer.

Earlier, in Paris, in an interview given to Armenian media France Telecom Vice-President Olaf Swantee expressed confidence that his company will be the leader in the broadband internet area in Armenia (on September 19, Orange-Armenia organized a trip for Armenian media representatives to the headquarters of France Telecom in Paris).

“And generally, we will quite quickly become the second operator. I think, however, that the most important thing is not whether we will be first or second, what is important is that Orange becomes the most favorite brand,” said the company’s vice-president.

Bruno Duthoit, the chief executive of Orange-Armenia, also says the company may offer services so far unavailable in Armenia. Duthoit says they will offer “interesting prices”, but sees no reason why an operator like Orange should engage in price dumping on the market.

Armenia’s leading mobile phone operator VivaCell-MTS General Manager Ralph Yirikian welcomes the entrance of the third operator to Armenia and states that they are ready for healthy competition with the new rival. Yirikian says that Armenia’s market does have room for the third and even fourth operator given the peculiarity of preferences among local customers.

“Let’s not forget that we, Armenians, are a little bit showoffs and want to have several mobile phone numbers with different access codes. It means there is still room [on the market],” he said.

Alexander Torbakhov, the chief executive of the Beeline owner VimpelCom company who was in Armenia on September 21-22, told Armenia’s Kapital business newspaper that the company will put the “competition emphasis” on the quality and distribution of services.

“VimpelCom has never been a company that provides low quality at a low price. We’ve always tried to provide the highest quality at an economically reasonable price,” he stressed.