State-owned Saudi Telecom (STC) is interested in bidding for a mobile licence in Syria, one of the few countries in the region with low mobile penetration and promising growth chances, it said on Monday.
Last month, Syria tendered to sell a third mobile operator licence, with a deadline for submitting a prequalification application expiring on Nov. 14.
STC, which made its expression of interest in a statement on the Saudi bourse website, is facing increasing competition from Mobily and more recently Zain Saudi in its home market, the biggest Arab economy.
Turkey's Turkcell and Kuwait's Zain have said they were interested in Syria, which has a population of 20 million people and about 7 million mobile phone users.
STC could be among the strongest contenders, especially after ties between the Damascus government and Riyadh improved last year.
The two current cellphone operators in Syria are South Arica's MTN and Syriatel, which is mostly owned by Syrian businessman Rami Makhlouf.
(C) Reuters
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