Telenor this week revealed its Myanmar customer base has reached 6.4 million.
That figure puts it considerably ahead of Ooredoo Myanmar, which reached 3.3 million customers at the end of the first quarter.
Telenor’s Myanmar network now covers 50% of the population, said Telenor Myanmar CEO Petter Furberg during a Webcast on Tuesday, who reiterated his target of 90% population coverage within the coming five years.
"It’s actually only 22 months since Telenor was selected as one of the two winners of an international [mobile licence] bidding competition," he said. "It’s been quite a journey."
In that time, Furberg said Myanmar’s telecoms sector has developed well in some areas, such as updating its land registry, which makes it easier for the government to grant permission to build cell towers. The government has also set a fixed price for leasing land, making it easier for tower companies to do business.
However, Telenor is still grappling with a number of institutional and societal challenges in Myanmar.
On the institutional side, the government still lacks the skills, process and willingness to make decisions, Furberg said, which can lead to delays.
"Corruption is still very high on our agenda," he said, admitting that Telenor Myanmar has received one claim of corruption in its supply chain that it investigated but was unable to prove.
Telenor also has to tread carefully when law enforcement make requests for historical usage data about its customers to ensure it strikes the right balance between crime prevention and privacy.
"We can’t hand out information without a court order," Furberg said, but at the moment it is not always clear which courts in Myanmar handle these cases.
So far, Telenor has received 15 requests for historical usage data and has complied with three, he said, which were linked with drug offences and missing persons.
On the societal side, Myanmar suffers from ethnic conflict. It is currently trying to finalise a nationwide cease fire, according to local press reports.
Telenor also has to grapple with Myanmar’s labour laws, which grant children the right to work from the age of 13.
"Compulsory schooling ends at the age of 12," Furberg explained. "Poverty drives many children into working as the sole breadwinner of their family. In many ways you can say that it’s culturally accepted that children are working to provide for their families."
Telenor recognises this but does not accept it as part of its operations or supply chain and has set a minimum age of 18. In spite of this, inspections routinely find underage workers.
Part of the problem is that Telenor’s network is now expanding into rural areas, "which increases the risk of breaches in our standards," Furberg said, although he insisted that "there are signs that the situation is improving."
