Hutchison Whampoa-owned 3 still holds a licence to operate in Norway and hopes to launch in 2011, a spokesperson said.
At the moment the group has entered an “active planning phase” and is considering various factors, Erik Hörnfeldt added.
“Obviously,…
Hutchison Whampoa-owned 3 still holds a licence to operate in Norway and hopes to launch in 2011, a spokesperson said.
At the moment the group has entered an “active planning phase” and is considering various factors, Erik Hörnfeldt added.
“Obviously, we need a network, a roaming agreement and an organisation on the ground to handle marketing, sales and customer service. Among other things,” he said.
3’s launch in Norway has been long awaited since the company’s Nordic branch – which is 60%-40% owned by Hutchison Whampoa and Sweden’s Investor AB respectively- acquired a licence for NKr65m (E8m) in 2004.
However, the group has still failed to start a roll-out and missed the deadline set by the licence agreement to cover 30% of the Norwegian population last September.
According to Hörnfeldt, that condition has been renegotiated and 3 now has until 2012 to cover 40% of the population. Failing that, “the regulatory body has the option to penalise us,” he said.
Yet the more 3 waits, the more competition is set to become tougher. Altnet telcos Network Norway and Tele2’s Netcom recently started deploying the country’s third nationwide mobile network. The NKr2bn (E239m) joint network should cover 75% of the population within two to three years, the companies said.
Waiting also means bleeding money. The licence, which expires in September 2015, comes with an annual fee of NKr20m (E2.5m), meaning the delay has already cost 3some NKr100m (E12.5m). This is not wholly negligible for a group that only reached break even in Sweden and made a profit in Denmark in 2008, five years after it launched in the region, while posting its first positive group EBIT in September last year.
Last December, 3 Scandinavia refinanced some SKr10.5bn (E1bn) in debt, extending the maturity from mid-2010 to late 2012. The deal was supported by existing and new lenders while BNP, Handelsbanken and Nordea acted as coordinating bookrunners
