epa05060692 A Japanese man speaks on a mobile phone outside the Yangon Stock Exchange after its opening ceremony in Yangon, Myanmar, 09 December 2015. The Yangon Stock Exchange is 49 percent owned by two Japanese companies, Daiwa Securities Group and Japan Exchange Group, which is the operator of Tokyo Stock Exchange. EPA/LYNN BO BO
OCK plans to invest about US$75mil for a total of 920 telecommunications towers to be delivered in 2016 for Telenor, in a long-term "build and lease" business model.
With the Telenor contract, OCK is “highly positive” of achieving its target to build 3,000 towers over five years.
Telenor signed an agreement with Myanmar in January last year for a nationwide telecommunications licence.
OCK said Telenor currently operated the largest 3G network in Myanmar and aimed to bring mobile voice and data connectivity to all cities, towns, and villages across the country in coming years.
Telenor currently serves more than 12 million customers, and covers with its network over 60% of the population.
The signing ceremony between OCK and Telenor was held at Telenor Asia headquarters in Bangkok, with OCK being represented by OCK group managing director Sam Ooi and Telenor Myanmar Ltd chief financial officer Lars Erik Tellman.
Ooi said: “As a progressive company, we seek to expand our services regionally, and Myanmar’s mobile phone industry has shown tremendous growth in the past year. This calls for more telecommunications towers both to cater for coverage and also for capacity.
“For OCK, this is a golden opportunity for the group to be able to partner with a prestigious company, Telenor. We are looking forward working closely with Telenor as its long-term partner.”
Telenor has built more than 4,000 sites across Myanmar to date, and Tellman said it believed that it needed to build about 9,000 sites in order to deliver solid nationwide voice and data coverage.
The OCK group also has business in Indonesia, China, Cambodia, and Singapore.
“The Myanmar investment is part of the group’s mission in growing our recurring income. Our regional expansion has always been focused on our telecommunications network services and it has been a fruitful venture. We will continue to be on the lookout for more opportunities in the regional markets.” Ooi said.
OCK shares closed unchanged at 72.5 sen on Wednesday,
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