DoCoMo Confirms Bangladesh Investment
Japan's DoCoMo has finally confirmed that it is buying a 30 percent stake in TM International (Bangladesh) Limited (TMIB), a mobile phone operator based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, by directly acquiring all stock in TMIB held by A.K. Khan and its four group companies.
The deal, worth US$350 million, is expected to be completed by the end of 2008. The stake is currently owned by AK Khan, a privately owned textiles-to-telecoms company - and had recently been valued at around US$300 million, although reports last week had suggested a purchase price of as much as US$425 million.
DoCoMo will participate in TMIB's management and actively draw on its expertise to enhance the company's business in the fast-growing Bangladeshi mobile telecommunications market.
DoCoMo will account for the investment in TMIB under the equity method.
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.
Posted to the site on 16th June 2008