Myanmar has shortlisted 22 aspirants for two mobile licenses for an initial 15-year term. Global and regional heavyweights in this beauty contest is listed bellow in alphabetical order:
| 1 | ACO Investment Group | 12 | Millicom |
| 2 | Asia Megalink (local) | 13 | MTN Consortium |
| 3 | Axiata | 14 | Orange / Marubeni |
| 4 | Bharti Airtel | 15 | Orascom / EPIC |
| 5 | China Mobile / Vodafone | 16 | Qatar Telecom / Ooredoo |
| 6 | China Telecom | 17 | SingTel / KBZ (local) / M-Tel |
| 7 | CP Group / True / Thana Telecom | 18 | SK Telecoms / Red Link |
| 8 | Digicel / Quantum | 19 | STT / Bewell / Frontier |
| 9 | First Pacific | 20 | Telenor |
| 10 | IG Group / MTI | 21 | Telkom Indonesia |
| 11 | KDDI / Sumitomo | 22 | Viettel |
China Mobile, the world’s largest operator by subscriber and Vodafone, the world’s top operator by revenue has teamed up for a license. Telenor, which operates in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia – has strong aspiration for a license in Myanmar to make its presence seamless across South and South East Asia.
Bharti Airtel, China Telecom, SingTel, Telkom Indonesia, Viettel (Viet Nam) SK Telecom (South Korea), KDDI (Japan), Axiata (Malaysia), Orascom (Egypt), Orange (France) and Ooredoo (Qatar Telecom) are the other big contenders. Caribbean big name Digicel has partnered with George Soros’s Quantum Strategic Partners and investment holding company Yoma Strategic Holdings.
One may wonder why Myanmar is overcrowded with so many gigantic aspirants. Financial Times reports:
Myanmar is particularly attractive given a large and youthful population of about 60m and an economy growing at about 5.5 per cent annually, while mobile phone usage is below 10 per cent. This is significantly lower than other emerging economies, which has made the country one of the last frontier markets for global telecoms groups chasing new mobile users. The value of telecoms licences is not known but could be more than $1.5bn, according to regional telecoms analysts.
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