Historically, Georgian tele communication market has always been diversified into mobile operators’ and internet providers’ businesses. As years passed, penetration of mobile as well as internet providers has increased, respectively these two segments of tele communication overlapped. On its side, this fact made the tele communication business face new challenges and respectively, new opportunities. What has been the trend for years – separate operation of mobile operators and internet providers, changed. Namely, tele communication service market witnesses the tendency of companies merge over the past years. Examples are merge of Magti and Caucasus Online in 2016, Silknet and Gecoell in 2018. As a result of this merge, Magti and Silknet now offer full tele communication service which turned out to be quite beneficial for us, consumers who can now use combined/convergent products and simplified, unified form of payment.

As a result of studies undertaken by ACT over the past 2 years, it turns out that in addition to low service fee rates, key selection criteria of mobile operators, internet and television providers are as follows: for mobile operators – wide coverage area and speed/quality of mobile internet. in case of internet providers, these criteria are quality of internet and speed. In case of television – quality of transmission, rewind function and diversity of channels.

As speed of internet is one of the main requirements consumers have for internet providers, growing tendency of using high speed internet is identified in Tbilisi as well as in regions. Consumers mostly choose 10-29 MBps (in case of physical entities in Tbilisi 64%, regions – 67%). As for technologies, consumers mostly prefer optical-fiber technology (FTTx). Speaking of television broadcasting transit, as consumers pay attention to the quality of broadcasting and rewind function, they mostly choose IPTV (74%) and number of consumers choosing the said technology shows growing tendency.

As consumer shares on the tele communication market, here in this new reality, as a result of consolidation of players, Magti and Silknet hold the leading positions in terms of mobile as well as internet and television services. Beeline which has relatively growing tendency compared to 2018 competes with these brands as a mobile operator and gets one fourth of entire market in terms of number of consumers.

As for fixed broadband internet, Magti and Silknet are mostly competed by small companies which do not have wide coverage area in the country. The largest among them is Akhali Kselebi which holds 7% of the market according to number of consumers.

Revision of companies according to their consumer shares clarifies that there are 3 leading companies on Georgian tele communication market at this point – Magti, Silknet and Beeline. Magti and Silknet are main players and the reasons why most consumer choose these companies are diversity of products (combined packages) and quality and at the same time, wide coverage area. Based on the studies conducted by ACT, we can conclude that each tele communication company has its specific place on the market. Namely, Magti is mostly described as tele communication company having high quality and expensive service.

Silknet is positions as an innovator which has stronger positions in the television aspect. More specifically, it is distinctively described as a provider offering comfortable, convenient (menu, remote control) and diverse (channels) television service. Beeline is positions as a company offering affordable tariffs and frequent promotions/offers.

It is quite interesting from where those specific characteristics of each brand originate and how companies keep them. Specific action made by the brand, product/service features, packaging or communication form certain characteristics on the brand among its consumers. The longer this brand carries assigned characteristics, more it strengthens and preserves them.

Based on our observation, perception of Magti as high quality and expensive brand originates from very early years of its operation when the company was clearly distinguished for wide coverage area and carried out the respective communication (e.g. its advertising campaign: “I have coverage even here”). Perception of this brand as an expensive brand may come from lack of discounts/promotions compared to competitors. In reality, Magti’s sub-brands – Bali and Bani were more affordable brands but their characteristics were not transmitted to Magti because the influence of mother brand appeared to be stronger in the formation of Magti’s image, as mobile operator brand.

Perception of Silknet as innovator brand comes from pioneering IP television/rewind function. Offered innovations strengthened this image even more and Silknet still keeps this position on the market.

As for beeline, from the day it was introduced on the market, this brand was distinguished for its youth-oriented advertising campaigns and promotions which are still active and respectively, Beeline has solid positions on the market as a company with affordable rates and frequent promotions.