India’s leading telco Bharti Airtel, Vodafone along with a consortium which comprises newly created YSH Finance - a joint venture that is 80 per cent owned by Yoma Strategic Holdings and the rest by its affiliate, are vying for two licences in Myanmar which will be issued for 20 years.

The process is likely to be completed by June this year and the licenses would be awarded later this year.

According to Business Times, YOMA Strategic Holdings said on Thursday that it had submitted a pre-qualification bid for a mobile phone licence in Myanmar as part of a consortium.
 
Jamaica-based Digicel Group is a mobile phone network provider operating in 31 markets across the Caribbean, Central America and Oceania regions.

Myanmar is planning to provide access of telecommunications to nearly 80 percent of the country in the next three years and telecom operators had to submit their bid by Jan 25 for two licences which will be issue for 20 years. The process is likely to be completed by June this year.

Myanmar has 5.44 million mobile-phone subscribers as of December 2012 with a very low penetration. The region has remained untapped so far.

China Mobille, Africa's largest mobile phone company MTN, Singapore's SingTel in have also expressed an interest.

In total, 91 entities submitted their Expression of Interest, highlighting the exceptionally strong interest in the Myanmar telecommunications market. The interested entities come from across the world (Asia, North and Latin America, Middle East, Europe, Oceania and Africa) and include some of the largest global telecommunications companies and foreign investment firms as well as Myanmar companies, said the Myanmar government.

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