Mozambique’s government has awarded the license for a third mobile phone provider to Movitel, a division of Vietnam’s Viettel Telecom, local media reported Tuesday.
According to Radio Moçambique, Movitel, which also includes some Mozambican investors, will pay US$28m for the licence and invest $400m over the next five years to develop the business.
By awarding a third licence the government of the impoverished south-east African country hopes to extend mobile phone coverage to 85% of the population of 20,3m.
Movitel beat off two other bidders, Uni-Telecom, a joint venture between Angola’s Unitel SA and Mozambique’s Energy Capital SA and TMM, a unit of Portugal Telecom.
Mozambique’s 7m mobile phone users currently use either the state-owned Mcel or SA’s Vodacom. Viettel operates mobile services in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. — Sapa-DPA
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