YANGON, April 11 (Reuters) - Myanmar has announced the namesof 12 international consortia that have pre-qualified to bid fortwo mobile licences, moving closer to opening one of the lastmajor untapped mobile markets.
The companies include India's Bharti Airtel Ltd, China Mobile, Japan's KDDI Corp, Africa's MTN, Singapore Telecommunications Ltd, Norway'sTelenor SA and Digicel, a group backed by billionaireGeorge Soros.
"The pre-qualified applicants will be required to submittheir applications to the committee by June 3, 2013," theTelecommunications Operator Tender Evaluation and SelectionCommittee said on its website on Thursday.
The committee expects to announce the names of two winnersto receive 15-year telecommunications licences by June 27, itsaid.
China Mobile has teamed up with Vodafone, whileFrance Telecom-Orange is working with Marubeni, and Africa's MTN with M1 Telecom and AmaraCommunications.
SingTel has joined with Myanmar Telephone Co Ltd and KBZ,while KDDI has teamed up with Japan's Sumitomo Corp andMyanmar Information and Communication Technology DevelopmentCorp.
Other pre-qualifiers are Axiata Group, MillicomInternational Cellular SA, Qatar Telecom and Viettel Group.
The bidding has attracted wide interest from internationaltelecoms firms, which see huge opportunities in a country of 60million where mobile penetration is just 5-10 percent, comparedwith rates of over 100 percent in many developed markets.
Myanmar, where SIM cards are prohibitively expensive, hassaid it hopes to increase mobile penetration to 80 percent inthree years, lifting it off the bottom of the world's ladder ofmobile use.
Vodafone (VOD)
