The Myanmar government has invited proposals from domestic companies to become the nation’s fourth telecom operator in partnership with a foreign firm, in an effort to meet rising demand for mobile services in the largely untapped market, Reuters writes. Under the plan, a local company would be selected to be part of a ‘special purpose vehicle’ with a foreign partner to be chosen later, according to an unnamed Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) official. The invitation calls for local firms with registered capital of at least MMK3 billion (USD2.37 million) to submit their proposal by 24 August.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, cellular penetration was just 2.5% in 2011, but following the introduction of two new foreign-owned operators in 2014 in the form of Telenor and Ooredoo, penetration rose to 31.8% by end-2014, and was estimated to have passed the 50% mark by 31 March 2015.