Pakistan's largest conglomerate eyes tower sharing expansion with Veon tie-up

10/12/2024 14:06

Pakistan's largest conglomerate Engro Corp, through it's strategic partnership with Veon, is eyeing expanding telecom tower-sharing coverage in Pakistan and exploring different use cases in telecom infrastructure.



"Pakistan is a very large market in terms of telecom, which keeps growing larger," Samad Dawood, vice chairman of Dawood Hercules Corp, which owns 40% of Engro Corp, told Reuters.



"This infrastructure business, with scale, allows us to utilise telecom infrastructure better in Pakistan and eventually also serve international markets as well,” said Dawood, identifying countries from "the Atlantic coast of Morocco all the way to Central Asian states" as potential markets.



Engro and Dutch telecommunication and digital services company Veon announced last week plans to pool and manage their infrastructure assets in Pakistan.



The companies plan expanding tower sharing coverage to other operators and looking into to other use cases, which could include electronic vehicle charging and drone landing.



Under the partnership, Engro will pay Jazz, Veon's digital operator in Pakistan, $188 million and will guarantee the repayment of Deodar's intercompany debt of $375 million.