Seeking Alpha: Has The Tide Finally Turned For Turkcell

The stock market performance of Turkey's largest mobile phone operator (and arguably the best-known Turkish company to U.S. investors) Turkcell (TKC) has never been what anybody would call stable, but the last four years have been rough indeed. Although Turkcell looks promisingly cheap by many metrics, investors may not find as much value here as they hope.

Has The Bleeding Stopped?
The biggest problem for Turkcell has been competition; regulators in Turkey have wanted more competition in mobile phone services and have imposed mobile termination rate and interconnect fee cuts as a means of achieving that. Something similar has happened to America Movil (AMX) recently and Turkcell doesn't have the luxury of strong growth outside of Turkey to offset the damage. As if that weren't enough, rivals Vodafone (VOD) and Avea (mostly owned by Turk Telecom) have sought to build share by aggressive under-cutting Turkcell on pricing.

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Has The Tide Finally Turned For Turkcell?

Investopedia: VimpelCom Looking To Join The Big Leagues

Mergers and acquisitions are in vogue in the mobile phone world, and not just with AT&T's (NYSE:T) acquisition of Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile. Companies around the globe are shuffling their decks and Russia's VimpelCom (NYSE:VIP) has been among the most active. Once the dust clears, this company looks to be one of the largest operators in the world, and a decent way for retail investors to play emerging markets with few publicly-traded companies of their own. 

A Mixed Close to the Year  

VimpelCom posted 22% revenue growth in the final quarter of the year, beating the average analyst estimate. Growth was helped by higher subscriber counts and improved usage stats in the company's peripheral operating areas (CIS, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and so on), growth that more than offset flatter (albeit still positive) performance in Russia and Ukraine.
Profitability was more mixed. VimpelCom reported OIBDA (similar to EBITDA) growth of 15% and overall profitability was a bit below the average expectations. The company also significantly ramped up its capital spending in the back half of the year as part of its overall plan to regain market share in its core markets. 

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http://stocks.investopedia.com/stock-analysis/2011/VimpelCom-Looking-To-Join-The-Big-Leagues-VIP-T-MBT-TELNY-MICC0330.aspx