Telenor in developing nations

Abstract

Telenor was a state control telecom company. Since the industry were being deregulated and liberalised in Europe and especially in Norway during the 90’s, it was and is still experiencing tough competition, where it is rotted. In addition, the market for mobile in Norway is almost saturated, i.e. there is very low growth if and until any additional useful service is added. However, the telecomm industry all over the world is going through a rapid change coming from deregulation (liberalisation & privatisation), and also from innovation of mobile telephony technology such as GSM & GPRS. These two factors have opened new opportunities for mobile service operators to engage in FDI. Seeing the opportunity coming from opening markets and huge demand for mobile telephony, Telenor has started to invest in a number of countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Russia, Montenegro, Austria etc, especially in mobile sector of telecom industry. Mainly using Dunning’s OLI paradigm of FDI, I will analyse Telenor’s FDI focusing particularly at the Grameen Mobile Phone of Bangladesh, where Telenor has 62% stake.