SK Telecom To Buy Instaphone?
As the first cell phone company in Pakistan Instaphone has a unique brand presence, even thought it has been losing market share steadily. Many of the top executives at rival companies such as ufone started their careers at Instaphone. Recently I asked a question about Instaphone’s future and TM wrote on Jul 14 that: “According to unconfirmed but reliable news, South Korea’s SK Telecom and the Arfeens Telecommunication Group of Pakistan have finalized a deal in which the South Korean player will acquire 70% stakes of the Instaphone (& Telecard?) along with management control.”
Given the reliable nature of the source above, some kind of deal with SK is likely to go through. If this happens – and I hope it does – it will make the telecom situation in Pakistan a most interesting one. My only concern is that will Pakistan be able to play a good host to all the international investors? There are a number of infrastructure and political issues which can make a big difference. It will be interesting to track the stock price of Telecard.
A couple of points from TM’s post which I recommend reading in entirety.
- In anticipation of a possible cash injection and to reduce time-to-service, Instaphone’s management had already finalized a hardware supply deal with Huawei for an all IP CDMA EvDO Rev A earlier this year.
- Arfeen Group manages three major voice and data brands in Pakistan (Instaphone, Telecard and Supernet) with Telecard’s being listed at the Karachi Stock Exchange.
- The last un-taken group of Arfeens Telecom represent a power-house of telecommunication with all licenses tied to a single ownership flag – from the super-duper cellular to the mundane dialup ISP license.
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[...] was first posted at TGP by Uzair Ahmed. See my previous coverage of this topic. The official notification and details from SK Telecom is yet to be [...]
SK Telecom bids for Pakistan telecom firm-paper
SEOUL ( 2007-10-10 21:37:03 ) :
SK Telecom Co., South Korea’s top mobile operator, has submitted a bid proposal for Pakcom, a Pakistan telecom company, the Korea Economic Daily reported, citing a senior SK Telecom official.
“We have put in a proposal and are waiting for a reply,” the newspaper quoted SK Telecom Vice Chairman Cho Jung-nam as saying when asked about market speculation that it had contacted Pakcom about a possible stake purchase.
The mobile company also left the door open to buying a stake in US wireless firm Sprint Nextel , Cho said.
“We are interested in potential deals with Asian companies, including Pakistan,” SK Telecom’s spokesman told Reuters. He declined to elaborate.
Hi guys, a friend of mine knows the Afreens and he says that a senior Afreen told him that a very good news about Telecard is expected very shortly. Only time will tell what is to happen..
Hamid, i am currently employeed in INSTAPHONE, and i have one confirm news and that is SK Telecom delegation was in Pakistan and was in INSTAs Head Office, Karachi. What i m not confirmed about is that why they were there? Now i am sure they didnt come all the way to Pakistan in INSTAs head office just to say “HI” to someone.
Mr. Mukhtar is right, such information is not provided to staff of the company and is kept as a secret.
well ya i agree with you people but still there are no visible signs. SK currently finalised the list of countries it was interested in and Pakistan was not even on the list.
anyhow we forwarded some of encouraging facts about the potential of Pakistan’s Telecom Industry to concerned decision makers in SK Telecom and now im asked to give another detailed presentation to the management with current facts n figures.
anyways hope for the best.
i need some help regarding the latest data from you people. If you people have some presentation on the current situation of Pakistani Telecom Industry I ‘d really appriciate that.
Hamid, I agree with NM … the decisions are not likely to be known to general employees of SK. Best is to keep an eye on the media for breaking stories.
Mr H Mukhtar
SK telesys is their vendor. these decesions may only be known to the senior managment at SK.
I am currently working at SK telecom as an intern but i didnot hear any news like that. it may be true but it seems more like a rumor to me though. Actually I talked to an official of a company named SK telesys and they told me that they are working on network optimisation for some pakistani company with huawei.
about SK telecom, I have heard that some officials are interested in going to pakistan this year with people from SK networks.
(some of them had observations on the security in Pakistan).
actually i am also going to present about Pakistan’s telecom industry next week :’).
the current situation of our country and the kidnapping of their people by the neighbours has made things weird and people are now concerned about Pakistan but still as some of the major korean companies i.e. samsung hyundai and LG are already doing business in Pakistan so things are not that bad either.
anyways, i would really appreciate if someone shares some nice information that they want me to share with SK telecom (the operators) or SK telesys (the hardware equipment vendors). I already got some data from the ministry’s sites.
thanks and best regards,
Hamid
hamid.mukhtar (at) gmail.com
RA: any more on Instaphone and SK, I hope they have not panikkkkked bcse of the mess we are in and more bcse of the kidnapping of the their citizens by our worthy neighbour’s outlaws (or inlaws).
Instaphone has already missed the boat. Even if today they start deploying CDMA EVDO network it will take them 6~8 months to have minimum coverage to launch the service. By that time GSM would have grown another 10~12M subscribers. They might be counting too much on data features of CDMA but how many people in pakistan need mobile data??? for such market segment WLAN and WiMax (’08 onwards) will be more reasonable. On top of everything handset prices and availability will be a big draw back if they go CDMA.
However, if they manage to get spectrum in 1800MHz (i don’t know if its available may be if you guys know then plz share) they can launch GSM 1800 otherwise I dont think that they will not be successful with CDMA.
Dear Bhatti sb.
If U read cloosely you will agree that tee eems messege looks more like a formal communication or a press release rather than an informal blog write up.
Information leak can have more than one impacts, intended and may be one or two unintended. think about it and you will agree.
The fact that SK Telecom was in talks is worth reporting. But do you think this “leak” at a few blogs will impact the deal or anything related?
SK Telecom delegation was in islamabad few days ago to have talks with Arfeen group management. No official announcement is made after those talks uptill now. I agree with NM here, it is leak of information.
The source seems anything but reliable; If I am missing any thing here please tell me if I am wrong about it.
seems to me like an intersting leak of information rather than some thing that has transpired out of the blue.