{"id":40800,"date":"2013-06-27T13:25:50","date_gmt":"2013-06-27T11:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=40800"},"modified":"2013-06-28T09:36:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-28T07:36:00","slug":"mtn-misses-out-on-myanmar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/40800\/mtn-misses-out-on-myanmar\/","title":{"rendered":"MTN misses out on Myanmar licence"},"content":{"rendered":"

MTN<\/a> has missed out on one of the two lucrative telecommunications licences up for grabs in Myanmar.<\/p>\n

Norwegian operator Telenor announced that it had been declared a successful applicant for a nationwide telecommunications licence in Myanmar, along with Qatari firm Qtel (Ooredoo).<\/p>\n

Eleven foreign companies were short-listed in their bid to supply telecommunications infrastructure in Burma, also known as Myanmar.<\/p>\n

These included: Singapore Telecommunications,\u00a0KDDI Corp<\/a>,\u00a0Digicel<\/a>, Axiata,\u00a0Bharti Airtel<\/a>,\u00a0MTN<\/a>, Vietnam\u2019s Viettel,\u00a0Orange<\/a>\u00a0and Millicom International Cellular.<\/p>\n

Myanmar is one of the world\u2019s last telecoms frontiers, with only 9% of its 60 million people at most having mobile phones. But faced with big investments and uncertain returns, some bidders dropped out of the auction including \u00a0Vodafone Group<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0China Mobile<\/a>\u00a0who said it did not meet their \u201cinternal investment criteria.\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement released today (27 June 2013), MTN expressed disappointed in missing out on the opportunity to operate a telecommunications network in Myanmar.<\/p>\n

This followed the announcement today of two successful bidders for operating licences by the country\u2019s Telecommunications Operator Tender Evaluation and Selection Committee.<\/p>\n

The MTN Consortium, which included Myanmar-based Amara Communications and M1 Telecom Limited, was part of the highly competitive bid process involving 11 other international operators.<\/p>\n

“In keeping with our strategy to continue exploring and evaluating suitable opportunities for further growth in developing countries, MTN still considers Myanmar an attractive market,” the operator said.<\/p>\n

“To this end, we will review other options as they become available, and make a decision after the appropriate due consideration.”<\/p>\n

Telenor\u00a0boasts 148 million mobile subscriptions with operations in 11 markets and in 18 additional markets through its ownership in VimpelCom.<\/p>\n

The government has said it will finalise the 15-year licences by September and operators will need to launch services within nine months.<\/p>\n

More on Myanmar telecoms licence<\/h3>\n

Myanmar telecom licence bid winners announced soon<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Who will win the race to Myanmar?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Major consortium drops out of Myanmar race<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN talks up Myanmar prospects<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTN\u2019s plunge into $200 SIM card country<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Telecom\u2019s hottest property<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MTN has missed out on getting one of the two telco licences up for grabs in Myanmar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":36017,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1660,5118,26,6164,28,5117,5632,4894],"class_list":["post-40800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-bharti-airtel","tag-digicel","tag-headline","tag-kddi-corp","tag-mtn","tag-myanmar","tag-ooredoo","tag-telenor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40800","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40800"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40806,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40800\/revisions\/40806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}