Vietnam's FPT enters Myanmar's telecom market
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FPT Corp, Vietnam's largest publicly traded telecommunications and software company, recently signed a joint venture deal with Irrawaddy Towers Asset Holding to set up cellular towers in Myanmar.
“The FPT has rich experience in telecommunications industry in Vietnam and other Asian countries. We would like to help Myanmar to develop its telecommunications sector,” said Duong Dung Trieu, FPT’s Vice-General Director for Global Expansion.
Currently, the ITAH and the FPT have planned to set up 2,000 towers around the country. The FPT pledges to help with technology, skilled workforce and necessary equipment.
“These new towers will bring better [telecommunications] services to the people. The FPT will do its best toassist on infrastructure and IT solutions,” said an ITAH investor.
According to Deloitte’s report titled "Myanmar: The Next Asian telecommunications greenfield?", the consulting firm noted "With one of the lowest wireless penetration rates in the world, Myanmar's telecommunications sector is positioned to witness robust growth in the coming decade".
The government has set the ambitious goal to increase the mobile phone penetration rate from approximately 3 per cent in 2013 to 50 per cent by 2015. The penetration rate is the lowest in the region compared with 57 per cent in Cambodia, 64 per cent in laos and more than 100 per cent in Thailand.
FPT, chasing for new markets, is now on the expansion mode.
In an interview with Bloomberg in April, Chairman Truong Gia Binh said the group aims to complete two takeovers this year as it seeks to boost international sales.
“FPT expects the deals to be completed in the second half “if everything goes smoothly,” Binh said yesterday in an interview in Hanoi, where the company is based. One target is in Singapore and the second will be in Europe, said Binh, declining to be more specific. “I would just say the value is not small,” he said.
One of the company’s shareholders is the SCIC Investment Co Ltd, an affiliate of the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC). According to Viet Nam News, SCIC now holds nearly 20.8 million FPT shares, or 6.05 per cent of the firm's total equity.
SCIC Investment announced last week the plan to buy one million more shares of FPT between May 19 and June 17. If the transaction is successful, it will hold 0.36 per cent of all FPT shares in circulation.
SCIC Investment chairman Le Song Lai is the SCIC deputy general director and a member of the FPT management board.
