The German telecommunications market is beginning to shape up like the original IBM Corp Personalike market, where some 20 companies were each saying they wanted – and would be quite happy – with 10% of the market. Latest contender to pop its head above the parapet is the second steel company – after Mannesmann AG – to thow its hat in the ring. Thyssen AG is forming Thyssen Telecom AG to group its existing telecommunications interests – the E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH mobile phone network, the 60% stake in satellite services unit Spaceline Communications Services GmbH, and corporate networks provider T-Net Gesellschaft fr Netzwerk Services mbH, and says it plans eventually to float the subsidiary. Thyssen says Thyssen Telecom will be applying for a licence to operate a telephone and data network after the German communications market is liberalised in 1998. Telecommunications will be a market by the year 2000 with greater sales potential than the car industry, the company declared, adding that it would invest up to $2,500 by 2000 and looks for $6,250m annual turnover when in full operation. The company says that it plans to add new activities, concentrating on value-added services and multimedia applications for both business and residential customers, and also announced that it had taken a stake in the Gesellschaft fr Datenfunk data communications consortium led by energy group RWE AG and including Mannesmann and Deutsche Bank AG. Over this year, Thyssen plans to set up a national telephone network using lines leased from Deutsche Telekom AG and integrate its own corporate network, which has 30,000 connections.
