Malaysian group Axiata has revealed it will form a strategic partnership with Chinese vendor Huawei under which the latter will develop new technology for Axiata. The two-year memorandum of understanding will also see Huawei streamline Axiata’s equipment procurement, which the Malaysian outfit also claims will allow it to reduce costs. Huawei and other Chinese financial institutions will also arrange financing options allowing Axiata to buy its products. In a statement to the Malaysian stock exchange Axiata said that the deal represented ‘a strategic partnership with Huawei… in areas to improve Axiata’s revenue stream in the longer term… while reducing costs for the Axiata Group through significant savings in terms of capital and operating expenditures.’
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Axiata has strategic mobile and non-mobile telecommunications operations across Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Singapore, Iran, Pakistan and Thailand. It became a public company on 12 December 2007, having started out as a private limited company named Telekom Malaysia International in 1992, and was originally a holding company for the international interests of Malaysian fixed line and broadband incumbent Telekom Malaysia™; the group was demerged in April 2008 as part of a structural reorganisation implemented by TM.