U.K. mobile phone giant Vodafone Group PLC on Tuesday said it won the auction for Turkey’s second-largest mobile operator Telsim with a $4.55 billion bid. Vodafone said it was attracted to Telsim, which holds about 25% of the Turkish market behind Turkcell, because of Turkey’s large population and low penetration rate. Turkey has 72 million people, and only 53% of the population owns a cell phone. In most European countries, the penetration rate is closer to 90%.

Full Story