With its large stockpile of free cash, China Mobile is looking to expand outside of its domestic market. The company already has a network in Pakistan (Paktel, later rebranded to Zong) and now they look to get into the ever-growing African market.
It is still unclear, however, which company the world’s largest operator by subscriber will acquire or invest its money in.
According to China Mobile’s chief executive Wang Jianzhou who spoke to Reuters, they pay much attention to the African operators, but don’t have a target company currently. He went on suggesting it is not easy to get an agreement for M&A.
At the same Bloomberg also interviewed Mr. Jianzhou when he said: “We are interested in doing business in Africa, but we have no target company now. We are still looking at options. We would like to use our experience [in expanding services in rural areas]. If we have an opportunity, we’d like to use that in African markets.”
As you probably know, Africa’s largest players are South Africa’s MTN and India’s Bharti Airtel, which has recently acquired Zain’s networks on the continent. The entrance of China Mobile could additionaly heat up the market and ultimately make mobile services more affordable to the end users. We like the idea. 😉
[Via: MobileBusinessBriefing]