Myanmar opens up new telecoms frontier

Vodafone has teamed up with China Mobile to compete against more than 20 other telecoms groups including one backed by George Soros for a mobile network license in Myanmar, one of the most sought after new markets for communications in the world.

Myanmar has begun the formal process of selecting two telecoms groups to build and improve its national mobile network. The process has attracted bids from most leading global telecoms groups as well as investors keen to tap into one of the few remaining untapped telecoms markets in the world. Myanmar is particularly attractive given a large and youthful population of about 60m and an economy growing at about 5.5 per cent annually, while mobile phone usage is below 10 percent. This is significantly lower than other emerging economies, which has made the country one of the last frontier markets for global telecoms groups chasing new mobile users. The value of telecoms licenses is not known but could be more than $1.5 billion, according to regional telecoms analysts.