ASTANA, Kazakhstan, June 18. Qatari Power International Holding will pay $1.1 billion to Kazakhtelecom (Kazakhstan's largest telecom operator) for the purchase of Mobile Telecom-Service (united company Tele2/ALTEL), said the Minister of Digital Development, Innovation, and Aerospace Industry of Kazakhstan, Zhaslan Madiev, Trend reports.
"The entry of a new Qatari investor in the Kazakh market is a very important initiative. These are new investments; this is an expansion of the investor base by attracting a new name; this is increased competition in the market as a new mobile operator enters the private sector. The amount of the agreement is about $1.1 billion. Specifically, there are plans to invest in basic infrastructure," he said.
Thus, the operator will be required to install 5G base stations. Kazakhtelecom currently owns 51 percent of the shares of the mobile operator Kcell, as well as 100 percent of Mobile Telecom-Service LLP (Tele2/Altel).
Notably, Kazakhtelecom is the leader of the telecommunications market in Kazakhstan, providing a wide range of services in all segments of the domestic telecommunications market: fixed telephony, broadband Internet access, mobile communications, pay television, and IT products.
The company's competitive advantage is its developed and powerful infrastructure, which includes an extensive fixed fiber-optic network (more than 88,000 km throughout the country) as well as an extensive mobile network.
This infrastructure enables the group of enterprises to provide high-quality services to 1.9 million internet access users, over 14.5 million mobile communications subscribers, and more than 1 million pay TV connection points.