{"id":33069,"date":"2013-03-06T16:19:25","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T14:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=33069"},"modified":"2013-03-07T09:06:36","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T07:06:36","slug":"mtn-in-myanmar-telco-licence-bunfight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/33069\/mtn-in-myanmar-telco-licence-bunfight\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN in Myanmar telco licence bunfight"},"content":{"rendered":"

MTN<\/a> Group is one of 90 parties who have expressed an interest in a potentially lucrative operator\u2019s license for South East Asian country, Myanmar (Burma).<\/p>\n

Speaking at the group\u2019s results presentation in Johannesburg on Wednesday (6 March), MTN CEO and president Sifiso Dabengwa<\/a> chuckled that the group was one of about 90 entities who had expressed interest in participating in a tender process to acquire one of two new telecoms licences being issued out by the Myanmar government.<\/p>\n

He then told journalists in a separate press conference at MTN\u2019s headquarters that, while Myanmar\u2019s population exceeded 60 million people, its mobile penetration rate was at a lowly 5%. \u201cI think it would be an excellent opportunity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMyanmar represents one of the most attractive growth opportunities globally at present,\u201d Rich Mkhondo<\/a>, executive, group corporate affairs, MTN told BusinessTech last month.<\/p>\n

Dabengwa, however, added that the South East Asian country would present several challenges, namely that it has lots of water, along with a mountainous terrain, making infrastructure rollout costly.<\/p>\n

The tender for two new mobile networks in\u00a0Myanmar\u00a0was announced on January 15 by the Telecommunication Operator Tender Evaluation and Selection Committee.<\/p>\n

A number of large global operators are believed to have submitted\u00a0expressions of interest in acquiring a licence, including\u00a0Bharti Airtel<\/a>,\u00a0SingTel<\/a>, Norwegian firm\u00a0Telenor<\/a>, Digicel<\/a>, and Malaysia\u2019s U Mobile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A deadline for expressions of interest concluded on 8 February, and according to Dabengwa, a decision on the winning bids could be made as soon as 1 June.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe process seems quite good,\u201d he said, noting that although two licences are expected to be awarded, that number may stretch to four, depending on whether the country\u2019s incumbent operator is privatised.<\/p>\n

Dabengwa said that the Myanmar government is expected to hand out bidding requirements, which will then lead to a short-list of between 10-15 companies.<\/p>\n

More on MTN and Myanmar<\/h3>\n

MTN actively pursuing Myanmar licence<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN targeting South East Asia?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Hoffmann report clears MTN in Turkcell case<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Turkcell\u2019s MTN lawsuit put on hold<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

MTN lifts interim revenue by 17.5%<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN Group is one of 90 parties who have expressed an interest in a potentially lucrative operator\u2019s license for South East Asian country, Myanmar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1660,5118,26,28,5117,1890,2339,4894],"class_list":["post-33069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-bharti-airtel","tag-digicel","tag-headline","tag-mtn","tag-myanmar","tag-sifiso-dabengwa","tag-singtel","tag-telenor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33069"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33079,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33069\/revisions\/33079"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}