MTN Irancell

active

On 21 November 2005, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) of the Islamic Republic of Iran awarded the second national mobile (GSM) licence to Irancell Telecommunications Services Company (Irancell). Irancell was joint venture between Government of Iran and South Africa’s MTN Group. MCIT conducted an international tender in 2004 to select a joint venture partner to establish Iran’s second national GSM network. Turkey’s Turkcell originally won the rights to participate in the joint venture with a majority stake of 70%. However, Turkcell was expelled from the project when it refused to take a minority stake of 49% instead of the originally promised 70%. MCIT accepted MTN Group’s offer of US$ 350 million for the right to participate in the joint venture with a minority stake of 49%. The only other national GSM operator in Iran was MCI, the mobile phone arm of state owned Telecommunications Company of Iran (TCI). There were also three localized GSM operators – Valiacom operating Tehran, Mobile Telecommunications Company of Esfahan operating in Esfahan and Telecommuniations Kish Company operating in the island of Kish. Irancell estimated to invest US$ 1.5 billion by 2008 to roll out the network. As of June 2006, the company had placed equipment and network orders to Nokia, Huawei and other telecom infrastructure manufacturers in the amount of US$ 500 million. Irancell was expected to launch commercial operations in September 2006. Capex 2011 based on MTN group annual report: parent capex * subscribers MTN subsidiary / subscribers of total MTN group 2012: Wireless Intelligence