MTN Group says it is not one of the the major operators reportedly back in Myanmar looking to hook up with state-owned operator Myanmar Posts and Telecom (MPT).
The Financial Times reported that SingTel, Vodafone and Orange are among a group of large operators to be invited by the government to pitch for a joint venture with MPT.
In June, MTN missed out on one of the two nationwide telecommunications licence in Myanmar, with Norwegian operator Telenor, and Qatari firm Qtel (Ooredoo) the successful applicants.
Eleven foreign companies were short-listed in their bid to supply telecommunications infrastructure in Burma, also known as Myanmar.
These included: Singapore Telecommunications, KDDI Corp, Digicel, Axiata, Bharti Airtel, MTN, Vietnam’s Viettel, Orange and Millicom International Cellular.
Myanmar is one of the world’s 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 Vodafone Group and China Mobile who said it did not meet their “internal investment criteria”.
The Financial Times reported that MPT was in talks with operators in Singapore as well as Japan and some other Western countries.
However, when BusinessTech asked MTN if they were part of the group of companies pitching in Myanmar, Nik Kershaw, executive investor relations at MTN, said that the government was looking for minority stake investors of between 30%-40%.
“We are an operator, we aren’t back in Myanmar,” Kershaw said.
source: BusinessTech
http://businesstech.co.za/news/mobile/48457/mtn-not-back-in-myanmar/
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