Slovaks' appetite for mobile phones has attracted two of the world's biggest players

SLOVAKIA'S dominant fixed-line provider Slovak Telecom (ST) is under increasing pressure from mobile operators, and saw its customer base drop by 8 per cent in 2002. It now has just 1.46 million lines, less than mobile operator Orange and only marginally ahead of its rival Eurotel. The rivalry within the mobile sector is just part of an ongoing global battle between two of Europe's telecommunication giants: France Telecom and Deutsche Telekom. Orange Slovakia is part of France Telecom, which took a controlling stake in the company under its former name Globtel in February 2002. It was rebranded as Orange at the end of March 2002, several months after France Telecom bought a controlling stake in the Orange group, now the world's second-largest mobile-operator group with more than 44 million customers worldwide. Eurotel is 51 per cent owned by ST itself, whose majority shareholder is Deutsche Telekom. The other 49 per cent of the company is owned by an American consortium of Verizon Communications and AT&T Wireless Services. Deutsche Telekom is Europe's largest communications company, and holds a large share of the European and US mobile markets through its T-Mobile subsidiary. Both of the European parent companies suffered heavy losses in 2002, with Deutsche Telekom recording Europe's biggest-ever corporate loss of 24 billion euro, despite seeing its revenue increase by almost 15 per cent, 30 per cent of which comes from its mobile operations. France Telecom has fared no better, notching up a net loss of 20.7 billion euro. Orange claims it now has more than 62.2 per cent of the Slovak mobile-communications market. It has consistently dominated the mobile-communications market in Slovakia since the end of its first year of operation, overtaking rival Eurotel in December 1997, when the company claimed 112,000 customers to Eurotel's 110,000.