The edotco Group, one of Asia's leading tower companies, Tuesday announced to invest $1 billion for its expansion in Pakistan by acquiring 13,000 telecom towers of the Jazz, which would create several hundreds of jobs. This was announced by Suresh Sidhu, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) edotco Group, and Arif Hussain, Country Managing Director & CEO edotco Pakistan, while addressing a media roundtable session to discuss edotco's plan for the local telecom industry, the barriers which need to be overcome and the role regulators are to play in facilitating further growth.
Daud Group will have 45 percent share in the new investment, said Sidhu, adding that edotco Pakistan established in 2014 as a subsidiary of edotco Group with the objective to provide communications infrastructure services to customers and be the one stop center for telecommunication sites and bandwidth services in Pakistan. The edotco has 700 telecom towers in Pakistan and is in final process to acquire 13,000 more in coming days. The group has already NoC from the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP), while NoC from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is awaited. The CEO further claimed that most of the other regulations related to the State Bank of Pakistan and other departments concerned have been fulfilled.
Based out of Malaysia, and present in six Asian countries, edotco Group sees Pakistan as the frontier for developing Asian markets. With a youth bulge and potential for exponential growth, edotco has marked its operations in Pakistan as its crown jewel for years to come, the CEO added. He further said that the edotco has planned extensive investment in the region on infrastructure upgradation, new infrastructure development, human resource development and environmental rehabilitation. The edotco plans to become a top 5 tower company in the world by 2020 through progressive investment in the industry, best practices, provision of a broad portfolio of infrastructure solutions and value-added services to enhance efficiencies and connectivity for communities.
Suresh Sidhu said the edotco owned/operated and managed 26,000 towers in the six countries. The group acquired licence in 2015 to operate in Pakistan. The edotco minimizes the energy cost by adopting renewable and green energy solutions and system optimization and enhances operational efficiency through sharing of resources and processes. He said that Pakistan has a huge market potential with 200 million population, 73 percent mobile penetration, 5 percent projected inflation and 5.7 percent GDP growth. Further the country has 40,000 markets of towers, highly favourable tele-infra regulatory conditions, backed by timely policy reforms and continued investment commitment from telcos and foreign shareholders. The edotco officials said that Pakistan has unique specifics as tower infrastructure license is unrestricted which presents competitive advantage for edotco.