Word: asia
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...borders of Norway, a country of less than 5 million people. It's a big player in the telecom markets in Sweden and Denmark, and has quietly built up cell-phone operations in five Central and East European countries. More surprising, though, Telenor is building its future in Asia...
Drawn by the potential for rapid growth in some of Asia's younger cell-phone markets, Telenor has been expanding in the region for more than a decade. The company now has 50 million subscribers in Asia, 17 times its number in Norway. The area now accounts for some 30% of Telenor's $17 billion in annual revenues, and will generate 36% in a couple of years, according to estimates by investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort. Asia, says Arild Nysaether, telecoms analyst at investment bank Fondsfinans in Oslo, is simply "the most important part of Telenor." And it's a point...
...Asia's less developed cell-phone markets soon became targets. The company launched into Bangladesh's fledgling sector in 1997 convinced, says Jon Fredrik Baksaas, Telenor's CEO, that "mobile communications are as important in this kind of society as in Scandinavia." Once Grameenphone, its business in Bangladesh, was up and running, Telenor sought fresh openings in markets offering rapid growth, and gradually accrued controlling stakes in local Thai and Malaysian operators. When Pakistan invited bids for a license to operate from 2005, Telenor jumped at the chance...
That leaves Telenor vast potential for expansion in South Asia. Meeting demand in Pakistan, where Telenor is the third largest operator with roughly a fifth of the country's market, requires adaptability. In rural Sindh province, for example, Telenor Pakistan sells cell-phone credits to women who pass them on to poor neighbors for two cents each; in urban centers, it sells youngsters sms messaging in prepay packages. Targeting a range of customers is bringing rewards. Sales in Pakistan almost tripled last year to $632 million; Tore Johnsen, the Norwegian in charge of Telenor Pakistan, expects that rapid growth...
...prayer rug purchased from a souk in the old city of Damascus, to celebrate the safe completion of a stint working in Iraq. The Syrian capital has always been a particularly good place to shop for rugs, ever since Silk Road travelers from the great weaving cultures of Central Asia passed through this final arc of the fertile crescent on their way to the Holy lands. Those days are long gone, but Iranian pilgrims visiting Shi'ite Muslim shrines in Syria still sometimes bring in rugs as a way to circumvent Tehran's restrictions on taking hard currency...