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There are new reports suggesting that India’s Bharti Airtel is set to buy a 70% of Bangladesh’s fourth-largest operator, Warid Telecom, for around $900 million.
Warid’s owner, the Dhabi Group, apparently sought approval from the Bangladesh Telecommunications Regulatory Commission for the sale. Moreover, we’ve heard Bharti would initially invest around $300 million in the company with more to come in the future.
Bangladesh has proven an attractive market for foreign operators due its low mobile penetration of 31% and potential for growth. Egypt’s Orascom owns 100% of banglalink, Malaysia’s Axiata – 70% of Aktel, whilst Norway’s Telenor controls 62% of market leader – Grameenphone.
A move into Bangladesh would be certainly beneficial for India’s leading mobile operator which is in the midst of an intense price war with rivals Reliance Communications and Vodafone Essar.
For the record, Warid has 2.7 million connections, which gives it a 5.3% share of Bangladesh’s mobile market.
[Via: GSMA]
About The Author
Dusan Belic
Dusan has been using smartphones since their introduction and is now following the latest trends in the industry. The "convergence" is what he's most excited about, and writing about it is the next logical thing to do. He thinks that using a smartphone is what everyone who cares about their time should do. In addition to his interests in mobile phones, Dusan also loves to experiment with the latest web and mobile 2.0 services. The idea of accessing and managing your information from any device no matter where you are simply amazes him. Whether it's an online to-do list, note taking service or a video sharing social network, he's there to try it out. He admits though, he's still searching for the ultimate web-based organizational tool, which "sings" perfectly with the mobile PIM application. Dusan used to run SymbianWatch.com which later became part of IntoMobile. He lives in Serbia, South-East Europe, from where he edits the site on a daily basis.
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