December 4 (SeeNews) - Bulgarian wireless operator Mobiltel, part of Telekom Austria, said on Thursday it has acquired local mobile phone retailer MWorld brand together with 20 of the company stores for an undisclosed price.
“The acquisition of MWorld is an achievement, which in times of economic crisis will make us even stronger. It will grant our customers more quality And will serve them as closely as possible”, Mobiltel’s CEO Andreas Maierhofer said in a statement on the company's website.
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MWorld operates over 80 stores across Bulgaria.
With this step Mobiltel aims at expanding its store chain while keeping the clients of MWorld. The acquired MWorld stores are located in places where M-Tel's shops are insufficient or missing.
Mobiltel will keep 30 of the MWorld’s employees.
Mobiltel’s operating income dropped by 26.1% to 119.2 million euro ($178.6 million) through September, while its subscribers reached 5.243 million at the end of September, up 0.9% from a year ago, Telekom Austria said in its nine-month financial report.
Mobiltel competes on the Bulgarian market with Globul, a unit of Greek wireless operator Cosmote, and Vivacom, owned by Bulgarian telecoms group BTC.
Besides Mobiltel, the wireless operations of Telekom Austria group (www.telecom.at) include Belarussian Velcom, Mobilkom Austria, Croatia's Vipnet , Slovenia's Si.mobil , Serbia's Vip mobile and Macedonia's Vip operator.
($ = 0.6672 euro)