Saudi Mobile Licence Receives Nine Bids

March 11, 2007

Nine companies have been put under starter's orders in the race to win the third mobile licence in Saudi Arabia. Home to the largest telecoms market in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, is viewed as a potentially very lucrative mobile market, due to its low tele-density. Analysts believe the licence could be sold for as much as US$4 billion.

Orascom of Egypt, MTC of Kuwait, Oger Telecom, MTN of South Africa, and Turkcell of Turkey are all bidding for the licence, as are a trio of Indian operators: Bharti, Reliance Communications and MTNL.

The country's telecom regulator, the Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC), last month agreed to extend the deadline for submitting applications for the new mobile licence to February 24th. A fixed-line licence is also to be put up for grabs and applications for interested bidders must be in by the 10th March.

The winner of the mobile licence will be announced within a few weeks, once the CITC, has studied all of the bids.