AT & T and Vodafone are competing in Qatar

Dubai, July 3: Arab telecoms operators and Western companies such as AT&T and Vodafone are competing for a mobile phone licence in Qatar, which will end the last Arab telecoms monopoly.

Qatar's telecoms regulator said on Monday it had short-listed 12 companies and consortia to bid for the mobile licence to compete with Qatar Telecommunications Co. (Qtel) in the Gulf Arab state, holder of the world's third-biggest natural gas reserves.

AT&T, Vodafone and Verizon Communications Inc. are eligible to vie for the licence, along with Arab operators Mobile Telecommunications Co. of Kuwait and Emirates Telecommunications Corp. (Etisalat), Qatar said.

Bahrain Telecommunications Co. , Egypt's Orascom Telecom and Jordan Telecom Group are also eligible to bid, as is a consortium including Belgacom and Oman Telecommunications Co. .

Bermuda-incorporated wireless telecommunications operator Digicel, India's Reliance Communications Ltd. and a consortium including Airtel were also on the shortlist.

Market Potential

Qatar, home to 840,000 people with a mobile penetration rate of more than 100 per cent, said it aimed to award the licence by October.

The country's economy is set to grow at 8.5 per cent this year, the fastest pace in the world's top oil-exporting region.

Its population should hit 1.34 million by 2015, up from 840,000 now, driving mobile phone use, Qatar's Supreme Council of Information&Communication Technology said in April.

It plans to award a fixed-line licence before year-end.

In March, a consortium led by Kuwait's MTC offered $6.11 billion for a third mobile phone licence in Saudi Arabia, far outbidding rivals including South Africa's MTN .

Bracing for competition at home, Gulf Arab telecoms operators have gone on the hunt for foreign assets after riding a wave of economic growth, fuelled by a near tripling of oil prices since 2002.

Qtel in March took over Kuwaiti mobile phone operator National Mobile Telecommunications Co. for $3.72 billion in the largest-ever Gulf Arab telecoms acquisition.

Reuters