Bahrain TRA receives one bid from Saudi STC for third mobile licence auction

TRA's dedicated evaluation team has commenced evaluating the technical and commercial aspects of the bid to ensure that they meet the qualification criteria of the Auction. STC's bid has passed the initial administrative checks. STC which has group revenues in excess of $9bn per annum, operations in Saudi Arabia and 6 other countries with in excess of 60 million subscribers utilising the latest technologies has also passed the pre-qualification requirements.

TRA plans to open the financial bid on 22 January 2009, but only after establishing that the bid, as submitted, passes the technical requirements as set out in the auction rules.

Mr. Alan Horne, the TRA General Director, stated:

"In designing the auction process, TRA adopted international best practice in order to award the Licence to a strong player who can provide innovative mobile services, compete with the current providers and maximize the benefits to consumers in Bahrain."

It is worth noting that TRA initiated the auction process to award the third mobile licence eleven months ago as part of the strategic and retail market review published in February 2008. In April 2008 TRA issued an expression of interest document inviting the industry to provide comments on some aspects of the award process, and launched the auction process in mid September 2008. At the request of the companies who have registered for the auction, TRA delayed the process twice effectively extending the time allowed to formulate and submit bids by 2 months from November 13th 2008 to January 11th 2009.