Experience counts for Telenor and Ooredoo in Myanmar

The awards cement Telenor and Ooredoo as two of the most ambitious and aggressive investors in the Asian telecoms sector. Both companies have relatively small home markets and have identified Asia as their preferred region for expansion. That is not to say that either company has had a smooth ride. Telenor faced much criticism when it entered India, with investors questioning the business case for arriving relatively late in a market with enormous investment requirements and some of the lowest per-subscriber revenues anywhere in the world. Ooredoo's biggest investment to date in Asia has been in Indonesia, a fiercely competitive market that, at one time, had 10 mobile operators.

Telenor's and Ooredoo's experience in these countries and their ability to maintain viable businesses while offering extremely competitive prices will have been crucially important in the government's decision to award them the licenses.

Telenor and Ooredoo rank 7th and 22nd, respectively, among global mobile operator investors and their "proportionate" subscribers (see attachment). However, this ranking fails to show how much the two operators have expanded internationally in comparison with their peers. This is because both have small home markets. Furthermore, both operators have much greater growth potential than other operators because they are present in huge markets where there is still strong untapped potential for basic mobile connectivity.

Additionally, both operators have delivered strong financial performance over the last 12 months and placed themselves among the top five performing operators, based on the latest operator scorecard produced by Informa Telecoms & Media.

Mobile company rankings by subscriptions.