Etisalat, Saudi Telecom, and Qtel amongst those in hunt for Syrian licence

Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Technology has announced that six companies have submitted bids for the country’s third mobile network operator licence. Assistant minister Mohammad al-Jalali said that the bidders are: Etisalat; Saudi Telecom; Qatar Telecom; Turkcell; France Telecom; and Iran’s TAMCO.

He added that these tenders will be evaluated by a committee from the ministry with the participation of a German advisory company as two candidates will be chosen to go to the next stage.

Applicants need at last three years of experience in operating a mobile network and must be already operating in two countries with at least 1.5 million customers in each.

According to the tender documents, a bidder may comprise more than one operator, but Syria’s state telecom company will hold a 20 per cent stake in the company that is eventually awarded the licence.

Syria’s two incumbent operators will have to buy out their current BOT agreements and convert to a conventional licence agreement. The buyout price has been previously reported as being around US$500 million.

Syria is estimated to have had just over 9.1 million mobile phone subscribers at the end of March 2010, representing a mobile penetration rate of 44 per cent.