Hutchison Asia Telecom Group

Hutchison Asia Telecommunications Limited

Type	Subsidiary
Founded	1985
Headquarters	Hong Kong
Area served	Indonesia Sri Lanka Vietnam
Key people	Canning Fok (Chairman) Dennis Lui (CEO)
Products	Mobile and fixed line telecommunications
Parent	CK Hutchison Holdings

Hutchison Asia Telecommunications Limited, formerly Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited, is a multinational telecommunications services company headquartered in Hong Kong and a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Whampoa. It operates GSM mobile telecommunications services in Sri Lanka and Vietnam, and CDMA services in Indonesia and Thailand, under brands including Hutch, 3 and Vietnamobile.

Hutchison Telecom was formerly a listed company with a primary listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (stock code: SEHK: 2332) and American Depositary Shares quoted on the New York Stock Exchange. In May 2010, Hutchison Telecom became a fully owned subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Group and its shares were delisted.^[1]

History

In 1999 and 2000, Hutchison Telecom sold its Orange and VoiceStream interests and re-invested the greater part of the proceeds to develop its global third-generation (3G) mobile broadband telecommunications business, based on the European UMTS (W-CDMA) 3G standard.

In early 2007, Hutchison Telecom made headlines by selling its 67% interest in the Indian mobile phone network Hutch Essar to Vodafone for US$13.1 billion (of which $2 billion was debt).

In 2009, Hutchison sold its controlling stake in Orange Israel to Scailex Corporation.Thus it ended using the Orange brand for providing mobile services.

In 2009, it spun off Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings (SEHK: 215) to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.^[2]

Corporate affairs

Hutchison Telecom was formerly listed on the stock exchanges of Hong Kong (SEHK) and New York (NYSE).^[3] It is fully owned by Hutchison Whampoa.

Current operations

3G

Hutchison Telecom's parent company, Hutchison Whampoa, developed 3G services under the 3 brand. It was first to roll out commercial 3G services based on high speed mobile video telephony, streaming and downloads, as well as music, voice and data services. Hutchison Whampoa Limited currently holds 3G licences in eleven markets: Australia, Austria, Denmark, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Macau, Sweden and the UK.

3 Indonesia

In July 2005, Hutchison Telecom acquired a 60% equity stake in PT Hutchison CP Telecommunications ("Hutchison CP Telecom" or "HCPT"; formerly known as PT Cyber Access Communications) from the Charoen Pokphand Group Indonesia. In 2006, HCPT announced that it retained Siemens to design, build and operate state-of-the-art 2G and 3G nationwide wireless networks. HCPT launched its commercial services on 30 March 2007 under the 3 brand.

Indonesia is an extremely attractive wireless market with a sizable population and a relatively low mobile penetration rate. It is an excellent example of Hutchison Telecom's vision and strategy in achieving growth in emerging markets.

At the end of September 2009, HCPT's customer base grew to approximately 7.3 million.

Hutch Sri Lanka

The company's Sri Lankan operation, commonly known as Hutch, is the country's youngest and smallest operator, but is growing fast. The company recently introduced 3G HSPA+ feature on its network and also an air time sharing system called "me2u" for transferring credit from one Hutch phone to another.

Vietnamobile

In July 2004, Hutchison Telecommunications (Vietnam) S.à r.l. ("Hutchison Telecom Vietnam"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Telecom, entered into a business cooperation contract with Hanoi Telecom Joint Stock Company. In February 2005, Hutchison Telecom was granted an investment licence by the government for the project and in January 2007, launched CDMA service under the brand HT Mobile.

While they offered a superior network, the market uptake was greatly hampered by the lack of affordable CDMA handsets, in particular, those with the Vietnamese language option, coupled with the trend of leading manufacturers to scale back handset development for this market.

On 8 March 2008 they received government approval to convert from CDMA technology to GSM. After the successful conversion, it launched GSM services in April 2009 under the new brand "Vietnamobile". The brand surpassed the one million customer mark within six months of launch, mostly in the prepaid segment.

Vietnamobile offers some of the highest growth potential in the region.

Hutch Thailand

In 2000, Hutchison Telecom and CAT Telecom Public Company Limited ("CAT Telecom") entered into a joint venture by establishing Hutchison CAT Wireless MultiMedia Ltd. ("Hutchison CAT") to provide exclusive marketing services for CAT Telecom’s CDMA mobile telecommunications in 25 provinces located in the Bangkok Metropolitan Area and in central, east coast and west coast regions of Thailand.

In 2003, Hutchison CAT launched marketing services for CAT Telecom’s CDMA mobile services under the brand Hutch, providing high speed voice and data wireless service to customers.

In 2013 Hutch Thailand has ended its CDMA services

Former operations

Hutchison India

Hutchison Essar Limited started operations under the brand name "Orange" in Mumbai. In other states it was marketed under "Hutch" brand. It was then changed to "Hutch" nationwide when they expanded rapidly to become the third largest mobile service provider in India and furthered its market share through the acquisition of BPL, Fascel, Command & Aircel Digilink. On March 31, 2007 Hutch Essar sold its 67.1% stake to Vodafone.

Hutchison Orange Israel

Even after selling the Orange Brand to Mannesmann AG in February 1999,^[4] Hutchison continued its use in Israel. Recently they have sold the controlling stake in this venture to Scailex Corporation. Thus it ends the story of Orange brand associated with Hutchison Telecom. Though Scailex Corp are still using this brand for their Operations.

References

External links

• Official website