HELSINKI, Finland—Elisa Communications, Finland’s second-largest carrier, has entered a long-term collaboration with Vodafone in the area of mobile telephone services. The initiative will boost the Vodafone group’s market position in the Nordic region.
The collaboration includes an option allowing Vodafone to participate in future potential offers of shares in Elisa or its mobile telephone subsidiary Radiolinja. Specifically, the agreement seeks to increase cooperation between Elisa and Vodafone in the area of product service provision.
Elisa described the deal as the “most extensive business cooperation-based agreement” completed to date in Finland that has a global mobile products and services component.
“This agreement connects Elisa with a strong international partner in order to provide our customers quality products and services required by their business globally, irrespective of place,” said Elisa’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Matti Mattheiszen.
For Radiolinja, partnership with Vodafone means the development of a pan-Nordic cooperation strategy, including service provisioning for multinational customers, dual branding for certain customer segments, GPRS roaming and similar international products.
“With this agreement, Radiolinja customers will have access to the most extensive GPRS operating area by July 2002,” said Mattheiszen. Vodafone has 100 million mobile subscribers globally.
