Russia's VimpelCom has announced that it has signed a Joint Venture and Shareholders Agreement to establish a mobile telecommunications joint venture in Vietnam under the name of GTEL-Mobile Joint Stock Company. The other participants in the Joint Venture Company will be Global Telecommunications Corporation ("GTEL"), a Vietnamese state-owned enterprise and GTEL TSC, a subsidiary of GTEL.
Subject to the conditions contained in the Agreement and in accordance with Vietnamese investment laws, VimpelCom will receive a 40% interest in the Joint Venture Company in consideration for an equity investment of US$267 million. GTEL and GTEL TSC will have an equity interest of 51% and 9%, respectively, in the Joint Venture Company. The parties' obligations under the Agreement remain subject to receipt of regulatory approvals, including approvals required for the legal formation of the Joint Venture Company and its receipt of the GSM license and frequencies.
Alexander Izosimov, CEO of VimpelCom said, "With a population of 86 million and a fast growing economy, the Vietnamese market holds great promise for VimpelCom and we believe the GTEL-Mobile growth dynamics make it an ideal place for us to begin building our international growth platform. We are very happy that this first step in the realization of our international growth strategy has successfully materialized. We are also pleased to be working with such a strong partner as GTEL and we value their professionalism, expertise and understanding of the Vietnamese market. This is a first-of-a-kind transaction in Vietnam, so we will work alongside our partners to ensure that we build a strong business to capture the revenue opportunities."
Estimates from the Mobile World analysts put the rankings as at the end of last year as three GSM networks leading - Viettel (10.4m) and MobiFone (9.9m) and VinaPhone (9.1m) followed by two CDMA operators, S-Fone (3.4m) and VP Telecom (2.8m). HT Mobile is migrating from CDMA to GSM and has a negligible number of subscribers. It is worth noting that none of the GSM operators has launched 3G services, while both the CDMA networks have nearly 800,000 EV-DO capable subscribers between them.
Posted to the site on 8th July 2008
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/32258.php