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Virgin Wants a Part in the 3G Gamedate: October 3, 2001 Virgin Mobile Asia wants to sell a stake in its Hong Kong business to one of the city's high-speed wireless operators. The venture would like to sell a 40% stake in the unit to Hutchison Whampoa, SmarTone, Sunday Communications or Hong Kong CSL, the winners of 3G licenses in Hong Kong. Virgin Mobile Asia plans to resell airtime on existing networks to test the market for high-speed resales later. A joint venture would cut Virgin's risk and might boost sales of the host high-speed networks, which may start operation in 2003. ``We want one partner who has access to 3G spectrum,'' Virgin Asia Chief Executive Ross Cormack said, ``In the next couple of weeks we'll start talking to people, and hopefully we can reach an agreement in two to three months.'' All four Hong Kong license winners said they were approached by Virgin before last month's auction of the permits. Network owners in Hong Kong may view Virgin mainly as a competitor and so may not be interested in investing. Virgin's costs are lower than network owners, who most spend about $385 million in as few as four years building networks. ``I have heard that they want to offer a stake, but I can't think of any rationale why we want to buy,'' said a top SmarTone official, who declined to be named. Still, license holders can't avoid companies like Virgin forever, because Hong Kong rules require them to open 30 percent of network capacity to virtual operators. Sunday, the smallest license holder, has less than HK$600 million in cash may be the most inclined to take Virgin as a partner, analysts said.
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