Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Nordic phone giant writes off 103 million dollars in Cambodia

Oct 26, 2010
DPA

Phnom Penh - Nordic phone company TeliaSonera AB said it had written down the value of its Cambodian mobile operation, known as Star-Cell, by 678 million kronor (around 103 million dollars) and would review its local operations.

Experts consider Cambodia's mobile phone market as overcrowded, with nine operators chasing a population of just 14 million people.

'After the write-down there is no goodwill related to the Cambodian operations,' Sweden-based TeliaSonera said in its third-quarter trading update released Monday.


The Star-Cell brand was launched in 2007 by Applifone, which was bought by TeliaSonera the following year as part of its acquisition of Nepalese mobile firm Spice Nepal.

TeliaSonera said Star-Cell is the seventh-placed operator in the Cambodian market with 503,000 subscribers, down from fourth place last year.

In its statement, TeliaSonera said it had become clear earlier this year that the firm's ambitions in Cambodia 'had to be reviewed.'

'Following further analysis of the market position, the value of Applifone was reassessed during the third quarter of 2010,' it said.

The country's leading mobile operator, MobiTel, last year claimed it had more than 2 million active subscribers, or around 60 per cent of the market.

5 comments:

Khmer Document said...

that really nice text

Anonymous said...

Star-cell operates in a good manner - not so aggressive not so passive. I am one of its subscribers

Anonymous said...

A write off into corrupt pockets

J

Samnang said...

Dear Teliasonera,

Thank you for contribution $100 million for Cambodian economy.

Your manager are very clever to spend so much money without getting any return of profit.

Hope your Europe shareholders are happy how you give away their money so generous.

Please open more company here so our country can become rich like your manager.

Anonymous said...

Momey! Laundring in action?????