A Bharti Airtel-led consortium has submitted its final bid for telecom licence in Myanmar, as the private telco looks to expand itsoverseas operations. A Bharti Airtel spokesperson confirmed that the consortium has submitted its final technical bid. Airtel already offers services in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and 17 African countries apart from India.
Apart from Airtel consortium, there are 10 other bidders in the race for two new licenses in Myanmar, which include Axiata, Digicel, France-Tel, KDDI, Millicom, MTN, QTel, SingTel, Telenor and Viettel. The Myanmar government had called for bids for two telecom licences and shortlisted 12 applicants. A consortia of Vodafone and China Mobile decided to opt out of the bidding process last week. The winners are expected to be announced on June 27 this year and the licences are for 2×5 MHz on 900 MHz and 2×10 MHz on 2100 MHz. Overall, the Myanmar government will award four licences, two new licences and two for the existing local operators MPT (the incumbent) and Yatanarpon Teleport (YT).MPT is a fully government-owned operator and YT is a semi-government owned operator.
