Is PTCL Really Going to Buy Warid?
Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) in its unofficial meeting with Warid in January showed its intention to take stakes of Warid’s operations in Pakistan. The Nation has learnt that the deal is to be fixed in the mid of February, while Telenor has quit its deal to buy stakes of Warid in Pakistan.
Though PTCL management has Warid in its priority list, they are also interested in the merger of the two. The main reason behind these mergers are sustainability of telecom sector, as this can not be borne by a single or small operators in Pakistan.
Moreover, PTCL cannot do its current operations in long run so it has to have such mergers, and all small telecom operators are to be merged with the companies having bigger market share, experts said.
According to sources, the Dhabi Group has confirmed its intent of offloading majority stakes with management control of Warid’s operations in Pakistan.
Bashir Tahir, CEO of Abu Dhabi Group reportedly said that PTCL has shown keen interest in Warid Telecom, and they are talking to every operator and they know that they are also talking to each other.
Similarly, Ali Tahir, group chief commercial officer of Warid Telecom earlier reportedly said in an interview that economic and political situation in Pakistan over the past two years had made it difficult to grow Warid Telecom. Moreover, an official of network vendor told a local website head Aamir Atta that merger/acquisition will result network merger too, as there are case studies of such mergers before where two large scale operators merged into one.
It is pertinent to mention that Warid has recently sold a 51 per cent stake in its two largest African networks to India’s Essar, and 70 per cent of its Bangladeshi network to Bharti Airtel. Warid Telecom is the third-largest mobile phone operator in Pakistan, with about 8.5 million subscribers and 19.4 per cent of the market. But industry analysts say the market has become crowded, with five major operators driving prices down and shrinking profit margins.
According to Pakistan Telecom Authority PTA Pakistan has more than 97.6 million mobile phone subscribers and a penetration rate of 59.03 per cent, and it forecasts to grow to 130.6 million subscribers by 2013.
The industry generated revenues of 212.42bn Pakistani rupees (Dh9.18bn) in 2008, while the monthly average revenue per user rate is about 185 rupees.
(Source: Nation)
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[...] Selling its Stakes Fews days back, this news has been all over online Pakistani news and blogs that PTCL may be purchasing shares of Warid. As the news of unofficial meetings between Warid and PTCl were on air through authentic resources, [...]