September 28 (SeeNews) - Magyar Telekom's Macedonian subsidiary Makedonski Telekomunikacii (MakTel) announced on Friday plans to rebrand and become part of Deutsche Telecom’s brand T-home, aiming to strengthen its position on the domestic market.
"...the rebranding process [...] aims to include the company in Deutsche Telecom’s family and to support the country’s efforts to join the EU," the company said in statement posted on its website, without elaborating.
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Company officials were unavailable to comment.
Last month MakTel paid 7.4 billion denars ($170.5 million /120.2 million euro) in 2005 dividend, 27.6% more than a year earlier.
"The reason for the late dividend payment is that MakTel was under inspection by the government and that is why the financial results were not audited in time," a company official, who declined to be named, told SeeNews in a previous interview.
In June 2006 the government launched a check on whether some of the company's interconnection contracts did not run counter to Macedonian law.
MakTel's shares closed on Thursday at 705.69 denars, up 1.82% from Wednesday, according to the latest data available.
The majority stake of MakTel is owned by Magyar Telekom via its fully-owned subsidiary Stonebridge Communications, 10% of MakTel's capital is company-own shares, and the remainder is in the hands of the government.
Magyar Telekom is a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom.
Deutsche Telekom provides network access, communication services and value-added services all over the world in more than 30 countries. T-Home brand offers services for the home like pay-per-view television, fixed telecommunications, Internet, etc.
MakTel (www.mt.com.mk) also controls the dominant local mobile telephone provider, MobiMak, which re-branded to T-mobile Macedonia in 2006.
Cosmofon, the smaller of Macedonia's two wireless operators is part of the Greek's Cosmote group.
Macedonia's telecoms regulator granted a third mobile licence to Telekom Austria's wireless unit Mobilkom earlier this year.
EU-aspiring Macedonia is considering calling a tender for a fourth mobile operator but has set no date or conditions for the tender yet. Some experts believe that Macedonia's wireless market, although comparatively underdeveloped, is too small for a third mobile operator, to say nothing of a fourth.
Macedonia became an official candidate for EU membership in December 2005. The European Union has set no date for launching accession talks with Skopje yet.
($=0.7047 Euro)