Qatari firm Ooredoo wins Myanmar mobile contract

YANGON: Myanmar has awarded telecom licenses to Norway’s Telenor and Qatari firm Ooredoo, the government committee in charge of the bids said, opening up one of the world’s last virtually untapped mobile phone markets.
Mobile coverage in the nation is extremely limited, with less than 10 percent of the population enjoying access to a telephone, offering a potentially lucrative pool of some 60 million customers to the bid winners.
After three months of deliberation the committee “is pleased to announce... the two successful applicants,” from the 11 global consortiums on a final shortlist, according to the statement.
Myanmar launched the tender, which is conditional on a telecommunications law yet to pass parliament, in the hope of quickly increasing mobile coverage across the country to reach around 80 percent of the population by 2016.
Few can currently afford mobile phones and SIM card fees, which in the past cost about $ 200, although the government is now trying to make prices more affordable.
The bid process has also been closely watched as a bell-wether of economic reforms aimed at driving rapid foreign investment in the nation, which has witnessed sweeping changes since a quasi-civilian government replaced the military regime 2011.
Telenor said it will launch voice and data service next year and plans to roll out coverage nationwide within five years — a key condition laid down in the tender by Myanmar.
“We are looking forward to working with the government and people of Myanmar in developing the country’s telecommunication industry, a sector that will play a key role in Myanmar’s socioeconomic development,” said Sigve Brekke, head of Telenor Asia.
The winners saw off fierce competition from major telecoms players including Singtel, Bharti Airtel and a bid by the Digicel group involving one of Myanmar’s richest men, Serge Pun, and billionaire financier George Soros, who were all eyeing the vast potential of Myanmar’s 60 million population.
France’s Telecom-Orange and Marubeni Corporation of Japan, will be back-up options if either of the two successful firms fails to meet the selection criteria, the committee said in its statement.
Valid for 15 years, the licences are the first to be awarded by the formerly junta-ruled nation, and will see the two foreign firms enter a market once monopolized by a pair of state companies.
Neither firm immediately released figures on the value of the bid or how much money they will plow into establishing a mobile network across the impoverished and remote country.
But one bidder previously had estimated the required spending to develop a Myanmar network at about $2 billion, while Digicel pledged to spend more than $6 billion in the country.
Concerns the bid announcement would be put back swirled on Wednesday after a move by lower house lawmakers to postpone the process.
But Set Aung, deputy minister of National Planning and Economic Development and chairman of the committee overseeing the telecoms tender said the tender would not be subject to politics.
“We are not dealing with small companies but dealing with the best of the best companies in the world... our dignity can be harmed if we respond late,” he added.
But Telenor and Ooredoo, formerly known as Qatar Telecom, will have to adhere the Telecommunications Law which is set to be considered by Myanmar’s fledgling parliament this session, the government committee added, without giving further details.