Advancing Telecommunications of Myanmar, marketed as ATOM Myanmar ( my, အက်တမ် မြန်မာ), is a telecommunications company in

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

(Burma). After the

2021 Myanmar coup d'état A coup d'état in Myanmar began on the morning of 1 February 2021, when democratically elected members of the country's ruling party, the National League for Democracy (NLD), were deposed by the Tatmadaw—Myanmar's military—which then veste ...

Telenor Telenor ASA ( or ) is a Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company headquartered at Fornebu in Bærum, close to Oslo. It is one of the world's largest mobile telecommunications companies with operations worldwide, ...

divested its

Telenor Myanmar Telenor Myanmar ( Burmese: တယ်လီနော မြန်မာ) was a telecommunications brand in Myanmar (Burma) between 2014 and 2022. It was established as a subsidiary of the Norwegian Telenor Group, and was sold off to the Lebanese M ...

operations, selling it to the joint venture owned by Lebanese

M1 Group M1 group is a diversified investment holdings group based in Beirut, Lebanon. Its CEO is Azmi Mikati. Origin The business was created in the early 1980s by Taha Mikati and Najib Mikati, the latter of whom became Prime Minister of Lebanon in 2 ...

and Shwe Byain Phyu. The company officially rebranded as ATOM on 8 June 2022. , ATOM Myanmar's CEO is Muhammad Ziaullah Siddiqui.

History

In the aftermath of the

, Telenor faced increasing pressure from the

State Administration Council The State Administration Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော်စီမံအုပ်ချုပ်ရေးကောင်စီ; abbreviated SAC or နစက) is the military junta currently governing Myanmar, established by Com ...

, the military junta, to activate intercept equipment to surveil and monitor its 18 million customers. In May 2021, Telenor was forced to write off USD$780 million investment in Myanmar. On 8 July 2021, Telenor announced it would sell Telenor Myanmar for to

, an investment company based in Lebanon, founded by Taha and Najib Mikati. In February 2022, reports emerged that Shwe Byain Phyu, a local conglomerate linked with the Burmese military, would own 80% of Telenor Myanmar, with Lebanese

owning the remaining shares. On October 27, 2023, Shwe Byain Phyu Group was sanctioned by the Canadian government for their connection to the Burmese military. The sale prompted significant scrutiny from Burmese civil society over data privacy concerns, given SBP and

Thein Win Zaw Thein Win Zaw ( my, သိန်းဝင်းဇော်; born 2 February 1963) is a Burmese entrepreneur. He is the founder of Shwe Byain Phyu Group, a conglomerate company active in businesses such as petrol stations, timber, and food exports ...

's links to the Burmese military. Legal experts and activists urged Telenor to protect customer metadata, by putting the sale on hold or by deleting the data before the transaction was completed. On 10 February,

Duwa Lashi La Duwa Lashi La ( my, ဒူဝါလရှီးလ) is a Burmese politician and lawyer of Kachin descent, and is the president of the Kachin National Consultative Council. He was named by the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw, on 16 Ap ...

, the acting president of the National Unity Government called on the acting president of Norway to intervene and prevent the sale. Activist groups like Justice for Myanmar called on the

Norwegian government The politics of Norway take place in the framework of a parliamentary, representative democratic constitutional monarchy. Executive power is exercised by the Council of State, the cabinet, led by the prime minister of Norway. Legislative power is ...

to stop the sale, because of Shwe Byain Phyu's close ties to the Burmese military. The sale was approved by the

Myanmar Investment Commission The Myanmar Investment Commission ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှု ကော်မရှင်, abbreviated MIC) is a government-appointed body under the Ministry of Inv ...

on 18 March 2022. Shwe Byain Phyu and M1 Group have formed a joint venture, Investcom, to take over Telenor operations in Myanmar. Ownership was transferred on 25 March, and Telenor Myanmar was rebranded to ATOM on 8 June 2022.

References

External links

* * {{Authority control Myanmar companies established in 2022 Mobile phone companies of Myanmar Internet service providers of Myanmar Telecommunications companies of Myanmar 2022 mergers and acquisitions 2022 establishments in Myanmar

History

See also

References

External links