RIYADH, 11 July 2004 — Vodafone of Britain and Bouygues of France have been disqualified from bidding for a second mobile phone operator license in Saudi Arabia, leaving six consortia in the race, it was announced here late yesterday.
The surprise announcement by Mohammad Al-Suwayyel, head of the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC), came at the end of the technical evaluation of the offers presented by eight consortia last month.
Suwayyel said the consortia whose offers would be evaluated in the final phase of the process include firms from Egypt (Orascom), Italy, Kuwait (MTC), Spain (Telefonica Moviles), South Africa (MTN) and the United Arab Emirates (Etisalat).
He listed the six as Etisalat Consortium (Etisalat), Kingdom Telefonica Consortium (Telefonica), MTC and Partners Consortium (MTC), MTN Saudi Arabia Consortium (MTN), Orascom Telecom Saudi Arabia Consortium (Orascom) and Samawat Consortium (Telecom Italia Mobile).
Bouygues had teamed up with the Saudi company of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri to bid to become the second GSM operator in the lucrative Saudi market.
Potential bidders were required to form a consortium of at least five Saudi companies and an international mobile operator, with foreign investors allowed to buy up to 49 percent of the joint company to be set up to operate the new GSM.
Earlier, three of the 11 consortia that prequalified in April, including Germany’s Deutsche Telekom, did not present final offers. A CITC source said Deutsche Telekom and Mobilkom Austria had unsuccessfully sought a postponement of the deadline. The third, Malaysia’s Maxis, was previously reported to have dropped out.
