Turkcell has picked Ericsson to handle its mobile and fibre networks as it revealed the attempted coup hit revenues in the third quarter.
The “end-to-end” managed services deal with Ericsson sees the Sweden-based company given responsibility for the operation, maintenance and expansion of Turkcell's networks.
The vendor has also been charged with improving performance, predictability, and quality of services.
Gediz Sezgin, Senior Vice President of Network Technologies at Turkcell said: "Our ongoing strategic cooperation with Ericsson extends beyond our requirements as a mobile network operator.
“At Turkcell, we continue to invest in both our current network and future technologies.
“We feel that our ideologies regarding the future of ICT are aligned with Ericsson.
“We see this cooperation as a milestone in order to reach common goals."
Financial details were not disclosed, but the deal was announced on the back of Turkcell’s third quarter results.
Revenues rose 8.8 percent to TRY3.7 billion (€1.06 billion), while EBITDA was up 4.9 percent to TRY1.2 billion (€340 million).
However, net income fell by more than 70 percent to TRY163 million (€64.66 million) due in part to costs related to its 4.5G deployment.
In its home market, sales were up 7.9 percent to TRY3.3 billion (€940 million) but the operator said growth would have been 9.7 percent without the impact of the attempted coup.
Turkcell provided free emergency communication packages to customers amid the instability in July, which the operator’s CEO described as “treasonous”.
The company’s Turkish mobile customer base grew by 179,000 quarterly net additions to 32.8 million, but this was down by 1.6 million year-on-year due to falling numbers of prepay subscribers.
The fixed customer base has risen by 296,000 in the past 12 months to reach 1.7 million.