The two world-renowned lenders, Asia Development Bank (ADB) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) will each provide Ooredoo Myanmar with a loan of $ 150 million, to co-finance its ambitious development of mobile phone infrastructure in the country. Ooredoo, Myanmar operations of Qatar’s telecom will use this $300 million worth of funding to expand its mobile network. Under the loan’s terms, Ooredoo needs to develop and implement an environmental and social action plan as per the IFC’s performance standards and guidelines. The main issues, which have also been publicly recognized by competitor Telenor, include child labor issues, working conditions, safety and security. ADB and IFC said in a joint statement that the loan would help boost economic growth and cut poverty. This is the ADB’s largest private sector investment into Myanmar.
Saud Bin Nasser Al Thani, CEO of Ooredoo’s group said, “We are proud that these two world renowned lenders participated in the funding deal with Ooredoo Myanmar to further expand our network and distribution in the country. This financing deal demonstrates our commitment and strong potential of Ooredoo Myanmar to accelerate the delivery of its network infrastructure and services to the people of Myanmar”.
Rene Meza, CEO of Ooredoo Myanmar said, “The company ended 2015 with over 3,400 telecoms towers adding over 2,200 new sites throughout the year. Ooredoo’s total investment is over $1.7 billion and we closed 2015 with an investment in excess of $350 million. We are also projecting an investment of about $350 million for 2016, primarily focused on network expansion, coverage fiber, IT infrastructure and some additional capacity.” He also said on September 2015, “The company did not initially target to mass-market and base our commercial strategy on the fact that we would be only for a portion of the country. Now the strategy has changed that we want to be a 3G network not only for the classes but also for the mass market.”
In 2013, only 7 percent of Myanmar people had access to a mobile phone. Ooredoo launched services with 15-year license in Myanmar in August 2014 before rival Telenor launched its services. At the end of October 2015, third-quarter results released showed Ooredoo falling behind Telenor on users, with 4.8 million subscriptions compared with Telenor’s 11.8 million. The two are competing with stateowned incumbent Myanmar Posts and Telecommunications (MPT).
