Australia
Telecom New Zealand acquired an 80-percent stake in AAPT, Australia’s third-largest phone company. AAPT is building LMDS and CDMA networks and resells GSM service.
News Corp. said it agreed to invest a further US$127.2 million in One.Tel, increasing its stake to about 25 percent. News Corp. said the investment would help One.Tel acquire GSM 1800 spectrum in Australia and 3G spectrum in Western Europe.
China
NTT DoCoMo said it will acquire 19 percent of the shares in Hutchison Telephone for US$410 million. Hutchison Whampoa, will retain a controlling interest of 55.9 percent in the company, down from 70 percent. Motorola will reduce its holding from 30 percent to 25.1 percent. Hutchison, with a value of US$2.6 billion, plans to roll out a Hong Kong version of NTT DoCoMo’s iMode wireless Internet service.
Motorola said it agreed with the Ministry of Information Industry to cooperate on technology and research for third-generation systems.
India
Bharti Telecom acquired a 51-percent controlling stake in mobile phone operator Skycell. Bharti Telecom, a British Telecom partner, acquired 40.5 percent from Crompton Greaves and 10.5 percent from DSS Enterprises for about US$28.7 million.
Malaysia
NTT Communications, NTT DoCoMo and Khazana National announced that they entered into a memorandum of understanding regarding the possible strategic investment in Telekom Malaysia. Evaluation of Telekom and discussions on the terms and conditions of the investment are under way. Analysts said the investment would fit into NTT’s Asian expansion strategy. Telekom owns 100 percent of Telekom Cellular, which has more than 300,000 wireless subscribers in Malaysia. Khazana owns 40 percent of Telekom.
Philippines
Globe Telecom said it will merge with Isla Communications. The combined mobile operator will have more than 810,000 subscribers, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT) acquired Smart Communications last year.
