Vodafone Increases Talks Over Bangladeshi Investment

Vodafone is reported to be in talks with Bangladesh's third-largest mobile phone network, Aktel to acquire a 30% stake for around US$300 million. The UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper said that the company has been assured that its plans to buy the stake from from AK Khan, a privately owned textiles-to-telecoms company would be cleared by the regulator.

The remaining 70% of Aktel is held by Telekom Malaysia - which Vodafone has also been rumoured to be in talks with pending the demerger of its mobile assets into a separate company.

Vodafone declined to comment on the article.

Last month, Gavin Darby, the company's chief executive officer for Asia, Africa and China had a meeting with government officials and said in an interview with local media, "Vodafone is interested to invest here. We are excited by the growth possibilities in Bangladesh,"

The country already has six operators - and according to figures from the Mobile World, ended last year with just under 34.4 million mobile subscribers - which is still a population penetration level of just 22.6%. Also worth noting is that while the country has six operators, only three of them are of any significant scale, Grameenphone (15m), Banglalink (6m) and Aktel (7m). While Warid Telecom lags with 2.1 million customers, it should be noted that it only started operations early last year. The two remaining long term incumbents, Citycell and Teletalk barely add up to 2 million customers between them.

The country is currently under military controlled emergency law, and it is hoped that democratic elections may be held this year. Brig General (Retd) MA Malek who head the Ministry of Telecommunications is a military appointment.

On the web: Mobile World - Daily Telegraph

Posted to the site on 27th February 2008