Sigma Telecom Ranked #2 in Türkiye for Service Exports in Bilişim 500 2025
- Sigma Telecom
- 9 hours ago
- 6 min read
Türkiye’s information and communication technology sector crossed 1.6 trillion Turkish lira in revenue in 2025 — roughly 39 billion US dollars. Within that market, Sigma Telecom has been ranked the country’s second-largest service exporter in the 27th annual Bilişim 500 research.
For a company that started in 2003 doing network optimization and drive testing, and that carries international voice and messaging traffic today, this ranking is a measure of something specific: how much revenue we generate from outside Türkiye. Not domestic scale, not headcount, not funding. Export revenue.
This article explains what the ranking measures, what the 2025 sector data shows, and what sits behind the result operationally — because a number without context is just a number.
What the Bilişim 500 research actually measures
The Bilişim 500 — İlk Beşyüz Bilişim Şirketi Araştırması, or the Top 500 ICT Companies Research — is conducted annually by BThaber and is the longest-running benchmark of Türkiye’s technology sector. The 2025 edition was the 27th, presented under the theme “The Silk Road of Technology Should Pass Through Anatolia.”
Three features of the methodology are worth understanding, because they determine what the ranking can and cannot tell you:
It runs on audited financial data, not self-reported estimates. Participating companies submit balance sheets, income statements and twelve months of VAT declarations. Rankings are built on net sales revenue in Turkish lira. Companies reporting in foreign currency are converted at a fixed rate set for the research year — 39.51 TL per US dollar for 2025. For companies making FOB sales, commissions are deducted before revenue is counted.
It ranks companies both overall and within their lane. There are four main evaluation categories — System Integrator & Business Partner, Distributor, Türkiye-Based Manufacturer, and International-Based Manufacturer or Representative — each with hardware, software and service sub-tables. Service Exports is one of the export-focused tables, sitting alongside Hardware Exports and Software Exports.
It is explicitly not a market-share report. The organisers state this directly. A Bilişim 500 position tells you how a company’s revenue compares with its peers inside the survey; it does not measure share of a defined market.
That last point matters. It is why we describe this as a ranking among Türkiye’s ICT companies rather than a claim about global standing.
The 2025 picture: a $39 billion sector growing at 40%
The aggregate data from the 2025 research is worth reading on its own, independent of any single company’s placement:
Metric | 2025 result |
|---|---|
Combined revenue of ranked companies | 1.6 trillion TL (~$39 billion) |
Year-on-year growth | 40% |
Companies that more than doubled revenue | 8% of the list |
Highest single-company growth rate | 323% |
Growth in artificial intelligence revenue | 58% |
Growth in cloud services revenue | 60% |
Growth in cloud revenue via system integrators | 101% |
Managed services (new category this year) | ~3 billion TL |
At the top of the overall list, Türk Telekom took first place, followed by Turkcell and Vodafone. In the export categories, Arkel led hardware exports and HAVELSAN led software exports.
Two signals stand out. The first is that growth is no longer evenly distributed — a 40% sector average alongside a 323% top performer describes a market where positioning matters more than tide. The second is the appearance of managed services as a category for the first time, which BThaber’s research lead attributed to organisations turning to outsourced IT as access to specialist talent tightens.
Why service exports are the number that matters
Domestic revenue and export revenue are not interchangeable achievements. Export revenue means winning against international competition, on international commercial terms, usually in hard currency — and for a country running a technology trade deficit, it is the number with macroeconomic weight.
Türkiye’s position here is genuinely strong but incomplete. Analysis presented at the Bilişim 500 by economist Dr. Hakan Yurdakul put Türkiye’s ICT exports at approximately 4.5 billion US dollars, placing the country 8th among the 38 OECD member states. ICT service exports grew roughly twenty-two-fold between 2003 and 2024. Yet ICT still accounts for only about 9% of Türkiye’s total service exports, against roughly 16.8% for Spain — a country of comparable profile. The headroom is the story.
Wholesale telecommunications sits at an interesting point in that gap. International voice and messaging traffic is, by definition, cross-border business. Every interconnection agreement with a foreign operator is an export channel. It is one of the few segments of the ICT economy where scale abroad is a precondition of the business model rather than a growth phase that comes later.
What sits behind the ranking
A ranking is an output. Here is the input.
Twenty-three years, and one significant pivot
Sigma Telecom was founded in 2003 as a telecommunications infrastructure company — network planning, optimisation and drive testing for operators. In 2014 we moved into wholesale VoIP, providing international voice services to operators, carriers and vendors. In 2018 we joined the International Telecommunication Union as a sector member, alongside the major operators of Türkiye and the world.
That sequence matters more than the dates. The infrastructure years are why our engineering team reads a route quality problem the way an operator does rather than the way a reseller does.
Network reach and interconnection
Our commercial value to a customer is a direct function of how many high-quality routes we can reach and how well we manage them. Today Sigma Telecom maintains 1,000+ interconnections with telecom companies and carries traffic to 190+ countries.
International voice
We deliver wholesale voice over SIP and H.323, supporting switch services, PC-to-phone, device-to-phone, calling cards, wholesale termination and online billing. Our international voice services handle monthly volume above 150 million minutes. Route quality is managed continuously rather than sold as a fixed product — which is the practical difference between a carrier and a price list.
International messaging
Our wholesale SMS service supports SMPP, HTTP and SS7 connectivity, handling more than 300 million messages per month. The Sigma SMS Panel supports bulk and application-to-person messaging at throughput exceeding 600,000 deliveries per hour.
Quality, compliance and support
Sigma Telecom is an ISO-certified company and holds PCI DSS certification, which governs how card data is handled through firewall deployment, encryption of data in transit, and antivirus controls. Our NOC operates 24/7. For wholesale customers, that last item is not a footnote — traffic problems do not observe business hours.
What this means if you buy wholesale voice or messaging
If you are an operator, aggregator, OTT provider or enterprise evaluating a wholesale partner, a Bilişim 500 export ranking is useful to you only insofar as it proxies for things you actually care about. It proxies for three:
Counterparty durability. Export revenue at scale, verified against audited financials, is evidence that a carrier is not dependent on a single market or a handful of relationships. That reduces your commercial risk.
Route depth. A carrier’s interconnection footprint determines whether it can offer you a genuine alternative when a route degrades, or only a re-sold version of what you already have.
Institutional standing. ITU sector membership, ISO and PCI DSS certification, and a documented history at industry events — ITW, Capacity, GCCM, MWC and Messaging & SMS World — indicate a company operating inside the industry’s compliance and relationship structures rather than adjacent to them.
Those are the questions worth asking any wholesale provider, including us.
Where this goes next
The Bilişim 500 data suggests the growth in Türkiye’s ICT exports is concentrating around companies that can operate credibly outside the domestic market. The organisers’ own framing pointed toward expanding into large, fast-growing regional markets — Saudi Arabia and the UAE among them — and moving from participant to net exporter.
That is the direction our roadmap points as well: more interconnections, deeper coverage in high-growth corridors, and continued investment in the routing quality and compliance infrastructure that makes traffic worth buying at a premium.
To our team, our customers and our partners across the world: thank you for building this with us.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Bilişim 500 research?
The Bilişim 500, or Top 500 ICT Companies Research, is an annual study of Türkiye’s information and communication technology sector conducted by BThaber. The 2025 edition was the 27th. It ranks companies by net sales revenue, both overall and within category-specific tables including hardware, software and service exports.
What does “service exports” mean in the Bilişim 500 rankings?
The Service Exports table — Hizmet İhracatı in Turkish — ranks companies by revenue earned from technology and telecommunications services delivered to customers outside Türkiye. It is distinct from hardware exports and software exports, which have their own tables.
How are the rankings calculated?
Companies submit balance sheets, income statements and twelve months of VAT declarations. Rankings are based on net sales revenue in Turkish lira, with foreign-currency revenue converted at a fixed rate set for the research year. The organisers state that the research is not a market report and cannot be used as an indicator of market share.
What does Sigma Telecom do?
Sigma Telecom is a wholesale carrier providing international voice (VoIP) and messaging (SMS) services to telecom operators, carriers, aggregators and enterprises worldwide. Founded in 2003 in Istanbul, the company operates 1,000+ interconnections and delivers traffic to 190+ countries.
Is Sigma Telecom a member of the International Telecommunication Union?
Yes. Sigma Telecom joined the ITU as a sector member in 2018. The company is also ISO certified and PCI DSS certified.
How can an operator start an interconnection with Sigma Telecom?
Contact our carrier relations team at info@sigmatelecom.com or through the contact page. We can typically move from initial technical discussion to test traffic quickly, and our NOC provides 24/7 support once live.
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