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| Sunday, June 25, 2006 |
Report: Maxis Communications Bidding for Sri Lanka's Fifth Mobile Operator License
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - Maxis Communications Bhd., Malaysia's biggest cell phone company by subscriber numbers, is bidding for Sri Lanka's fifth mobile operator license, a news report said Sunday.
Other bidders are believed to be Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. and India's Reliance Infocomm Ltd., said The Edge business weekly.
Their interest in Sri Lanka's market is indicative of operators' "desperation" to venture abroad, the paper said.
"There are only a few assets in markets with low mobile penetration which are for sale and this explains why even a fifth license in a country like Sri Lanka will be pursued," the report quoted an unidentified analyst as saying.
Sri Lanka had 3.3 million mobile phone users at the end of last year, with a penetration rate of 17.3 percent. There is also a lack of landline service in the country, which makes mobile services more attractive, the report said.
For Maxis, interest in Sri Lanka could also be due to the successful experience of its Malaysian rival, state-owned Telekom Malaysia Bhd., which owns 87.7 percent of Dialog Telekom Ltd.
Dialog was Sri Lanka's fourth mobile phone operator when Telekom Malaysia bought into it in 1995, but today it is in No. 1 position with nearly 60 percent market share.
Maxis officials could not be reached Sunday for comment.
If Maxis, which has more than 8 million subscribers in Malaysia, succeeds in securing Sri Lanka's fifth license, it could derive some synergies from its neighboring Indian operations under Aircel Ltd.
Bids for the license costing $4 million close on June 30, The Edge reported.
The other operators in Sri Lanka are Celltel Lanka Ltd., wholly owned by Luxembourg-based cellular operator Millicom International Cellular; Hutchinson, a unit of Hong Kong's Hutchinson Telecommunications Ltd.; and Mobitel, a unit of government-owned Sri Lanka Telecom. |
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