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Vodafone joins fray in Burma's fledgling mobile market(Guardian (UK) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Vodafone and China Mobile have waded into battle in Burma against a consortium that includes billionaire speculator George Soros and Irish entrepreneur Denis O'Brien, as telecoms firms vie for a share of the world's largest untapped mobile phone market. Telecoms will be among the first industries to be liberalised under Burma's reformist government, which hopes to place mobiles into the hands of between 75% and 80% of its 60 million citizens by 2016, up from an estimated 6% today. If take-up is high, the mobile market in Burma - renamed Myanmar by the ruling junta - could be worth $10bn (pounds 6bn) a year, with networks generating $7.3bn of those revenues, research by Ericsson found. Foreign companies are eager to partake and by yesterday's deadline 22 bids had been submitted. Vodafone and China Mobile, the world's two largest wireless companies, have made a joint application, with the British firm named as the "experienced" operator because of its extensive international holdings. "Myanmar will be an important new market for the global mobile industry," the companies said in a statement. Liberalisation would "accelerate the pace of Myanmar's social and economic development through mass-market adoption of mobile services, similar to the mobile-led transformation under way within many other Asian and African countries", it added. Vodafone owned a small stake in China Mobile until 2010, and the two groups have maintained their relationship in areas such as international calls. They declined to discuss the size of each partner's share in any joint venture. A shortlist will be unveiled this month and on 27 June two winning foreign ventures will be invited to join Burma's two domestic networks in offering services. O'Brien's Digicel, which operates networks in the Caribbean, has assembled a consortium of investors that includes Soros and Burmese property magnate Serge Pun. "Digicel has been successful in entering recently liberalised markets and driving teledensity in underserved countries across the globe," O'Brien said. Other bidders include France's Orange, Singapore Telecommunications, Telkom Indonesia, Qatar Telecom and Norway's Telenor. "There's not many of these markets left in the world," Telenor executive Glenn Mandelid said recently. "When this opens up, the potential is so big." Mobile penetration in Burma is low because of the high cost of sim cards. Limited services were introduced in 2001, and the price of activating a phone was initially 4.5m kyat (pounds 3,900). But this week state TV announced plans to sell 350,000 sim cards a month, starting on 24 April, with the chips costing 1,500 kyat (pounds 1.30). Captions: A used phone dealer in Rangoon, Burma. Only 6% of Burmese own a mobile, but the market is being liberalised to increase takeup Photograph: Paula Bronstein/Getty (c) 2013 Guardian Newspapers Limited. |