Could you please
provide a general overview of the activities of
Garant Park Telecom. What services do you offer?
Our company was launched in 1995 as Garant Park.
The major services were internet service providing,
collocation hosting, elaboration of information
systems. Our departments then grew into independent
companies: the telecommunication department is
now Garant Park Telecom Company; the program department
is Garant Park Internet; and apart from these
we have another company in the holding which is
Park Media which is engaged in the legal aspects
of the telecommunication business in Russia. As
for Garant Park Telecom proper, the major activity
is providing access to the Internet through separate
lines, dial-up IT, collocation hosting. We are
also engaged in system integration, such as building
networks and calculation complexes of any degree
of complexity on a turn-key basis.
The sector itself is forecasted to boom and
the revenues are expected to increase from 15
to 20 % annually. What are the revenues of Garant
Park Telecom and do you expect a corresponding
rise in revenues?
We are not the largest company in the Moscow market
- our business is more likely to be between Small
and Medium-sized level. Our company is actively
developing.
Only 16% of the Russian population are PC users
and only 4 % are Internet users. Why is this so,
and what can your company do to improve the situation?
Russia and Moscow are totally different things.
While for all of Russia the figure 4% of Internet
users is adequate, in Moscow it goes up as high
as 80-90% of total computer users. And statistics
show that for a population of 12 million people
in Moscow, there are 8 million computers. So this
suggests that total Internet use in Moscow is
rising up to 7 million people.
Is your activity mostly focused in Moscow,
or you are going to develop out into new regions?
We do not spread our activity directly to the
regions, yet there are companies which belong
to our holding in the cities of Ekaterinburgh,
Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk. These are totally
independent entities, such as Garant Sibir, but
they are organised with the help of our experts
and they now work autonomously. They have grown
out of departments of our company and today we
have partnership relations.
The internet services sector itself is forecasted
to boom but as of today there are already 350
internet service providers in Russia, so it is
a tough competitive market. How do you manage
to compete and to survive, and what is your niche
market?
In Russia all internet providers can be divided
into three categories.
· The first category comes from "the
system". It enjoys special privileges because
it receives government support in terms of funding,
equipment and licensing for services for which others
have no access. |
· The second
group of providers are independent companies whose
business is profitable, who have a certain niche
in the market. It is here that the competitive environment
exists. Garant Park Telecom belongs to this group.
We are definitely not the largest company in the
Moscow market, and our business is more likely to
be between the Small and Medium sized level, but
we are actively developing.
· Then the third group includes small entities
which service small groups of clients, for example
a providers which service only one residential house.
There is no competition between these providers
as well, since each of them has their own share
and there is enough room for everybody.
As an independent company will you be looking
to forge partnerships with foreign companies to
reach the global market, to obtain funding,
technologies, and equipment you need?
We certainly are. This will be within our limits,
of course, because the potential investors do not
always consider small and medium-sized businesses;
strategic investors are usually searching for larger
companies. Yet we are partners of CISCO systems
as the leading supplier of telecom equipment, and
we benefit from strong relationships other companies,
producers and suppliers of high tech equipment.
We had an experience of collaboration with Cable
and Wireless but unfortunately the company did not
meet our expectations.
The Internet and new technologies sector is growing
very quickly. You might be a small company, but
so was Microsoft in the 1970s… Where do you
expect to be in ten years?
In the past, the management and several experts
of our companies witnessed the birth of the Internet
in Russia in Moscow State University. So the birthplace
of our company is the laboratory no 2.50 of the
physical faculty. Now on the faculty's roof there
is a 12 meter satellite antenna which I installed
with my own hands eight years ago. Then the whole
Russian Internet was received through the modem
of 14.400 model. Our team had a fixed idea that
the future is behind this infrastructure and the
network is to be developed, and as a result, the
first five internet sites in Russia appeared in
Moscow State University. In another ten years we
would like to see our company larger than now, with
its turnover increased. We would like to enter in
the new technology markets, such as IT telephony,
which is only emerging in Russia. But it is already
quite clear that in about 10 years conventional
telephony will start curtailing.
Your is your final message to the readers of
Red Herring, keeping in mind that they are potential
investors?
I would like to wish every success to all your readers
and all the companies in the telecommunications
market. I would like all companies working in the
high tech sphere to work as partners rather than
as rivals. Every company has its focus and projects,
and jointly the yields could be much richer. Any
competitive fight in the end impacts the client,
to which I also wish success. |
