Ooredoo and MTN Group short-listed in Myanmar

The Myanmar government says that it has pre-qualified 12 companies to bid for the country’s two mobile operator licences.

The final stage of the licence award process will now start for the pre-qualified applicants.

The pre-qualified applicants will be required to submit their applications to the committee by June 3, 2013. The committee expects to announce, by June 27, 2013, the two applicants that will be granted nationwide telecommunications licences.

The licence details are still being worked out but are expected to be valid for between 10-20 years and will come with a minimum geographical coverage requirement.

The country currently has both GSM (900MHz, launched in 2002) and CDMA networks (800MHz and 450MHz launched in 1999 and 2008, respectively). In 2008, 3G (WCDMA 2100MHz) was also introduced.

According to the latest official data, as of the end of December 2012, Myanmar counted 5.44 million subscribers equivalent to nine per cent of the population. The twelve pre-qualified applicants are:

• Airtel
• Axiata Group
• Digicel
• France Telecom + Marubeni
• KDDI + Sumitomo + Myanmar MICTDC + A1 Construction
• Millicom
• MTN Dubai + M1 Telecom + Amara Communications
• Qatar Telecom (Ooredoo)
• Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) + KBZ + Myanmar M-Tel
• Telenor
• Viettel Group
• Vodafone + China Mobile