Bharti, RCoM, in race for Saudi licence

Bharti, Reliance Communications and MTNL have joined six other global telecom companies in the race for Saudi Arabia's third mobile licence. ET had first reported that Bharti, Reliance Communications and MTNL were considering the option of applying for the Saudi licenses.

Sources said that the three Indian telcos had submitted their bids over the weekend, which was the last date for the placing of the bids. They also added that all three companies had formed consortiums with local partners for the bid. While Reliance has teamed up with local partner Abdullah Adbulaziz Al-Rajhi, Bharti has teamed up with the Samawat and MTNL with Al Shoula, the sources added.

Saudi Arabia is the largest telecom market in the Gulf and is also considered as a very lucrative market as its tele-density is very low. Analysts peg the value of the Saudi licence at about $4 billion.

The Indian telcos, however, will have to compete with many international majors who are also in the race for the licenses including Orascom of Egypt, MTC of Kuwait, Oger Telecom, MTN of South Africa and Turkcell of Turkey for the Saudi licence.

Last month, following the request from several companies, Saudi Arabia's telecom regulator Communication and Information Technology Commission (CITC) extended the deadline for submitting applications for the new mobile licence to February 24, and for the fixed-line licence to March 10 . The new licences, when awarded, will break the monopoly of Saudi Telecom Co (STC) in the landline segment in addition to adding a third mobile phone operator after STC and Mobily.

All three Indian companies have a history of bidding for licences abroad, although their record on this front is mixed. MTNL, which had recently lost the bid Kenyan's second national licence also offers services in Nepal and Mauritius.

Earlier this month, Reliance got a second shot at bagging the Kenyan mobile licence it lost to Dubai-based Vtel Holdings after the latter's contract was cancelled by the Kenyan government. Last year, Reliance lost its bid for mobile licences in Egypt, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

Bharti had recently bagged the licence to become Sri Lanka's fifth GSM-based operator. The company, which lost out in Kenya and Bhutan, also offers comprehensive telecom services in Seychelles under the Airtel brand since 1998 and has also been awarded licenses to operate 2G and 3G services in Jersey and Guernsey in Europe.