The Burmese government has invited companies to bid on the fourth mobile licence. The eventual winner will be a joint venture between a local player and established international telco, which will compete with Telenor, Ooredoo and state-backed MPT.
The Burmese government has invited companies to bid on the fourth mobile licence by 5pm local time on 18 December. The licence will be awarded to a joint venture, comprising a local and an international player, during the first half of 2016.
The guidelines can be found here.
During the 2013 privatisation process, Millicom, Orange, Bharti and Digicel were among the companies to prequalify as bidder.
The government said it aimed to “increase overall teledensity, to make telecommunications services available to the public at affordable prices in both urban and rural areas, and to give citizens and enterprises the ability to choose their telecommunications services and providers”.
The union government has to this end set up a tender committee to oversee the process, which will comprise the selection of the domestic public companies, the shortlisting of “a limited number of suitable foreign telecom operators,” finalising the selection of the preferred foreign telecom operator and applying for the licence to be granted by the country’s Posts and Telecommunications Department.
The market is currently home to three players: Norway’s Telenor, Qatari incumbent Ooredoo and MPT, a joint venture between the telecoms ministry and Japanese telco KDDI.
The government had also invited Vodafone, Orange and SingTel to apply as foreign partners to the ministry, as part of the 2013 process.
In July, Telenor said its subscriber base in Myanmar had surpassed 10 million, while Ooredoo said it had 3.3 million customers at the end of April.
As of 2013, Myanmar had a population of 53.26 million, according to the World Bank.
In anticipation of the telecoms boom, towercos have been in expansion mode. Axiata last week saying it planned to invest US$200m in local towers. Other towercos active in the country include Apollo Towers, Pan Asia Towers, Eco-Friendly Towers and Irrawaddy Towers.