Hutchison Asia Telecom Group

Hutchison Asia Telecom Group or HAT, is a division of Hong Kong-based multinational conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings. The division provides telecommunications services to several Asian countries. The division was formerly incorporated as Hutchison Telecommunications International Limited, known as Hutchison Telecom or HTIL in short. It an offshore company in the Cayman Islands and a listed company in the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong. It operates GSM, 3G and 4G mobile telecommunications services in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam under brands 3, Hutch and Vietnamobile.

Hutchison Telecommunications International was formerly a listed company with a primary listing on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong (former stock code: 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. In 2009, Hutchison Telecom also spin off part of their assets as a separate listed company Hutchison Telecommunications Hong Kong Holdings, which including 3 Hong Kong and Hutchison Global Communications.

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 December 2007, minority shareholder of Hutchison Telecommunications International (HTIL), Orascom Telecom, sold the 14.2% stake of HTIL, to HTIL's parent company Hutchison Whampoa, for HK$7.5 billion (approx. US$962 million). Orascom also reduced the stake from 19.3% to 16.3%, through a private placement of shares to the market in October 2007.

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 (stock code: 215) to be listed on the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong.

In 2010, the company was privatized.

Current operations

Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison

In July 2005, Hutchison Telecom acquired a 60% equity stake in PT Hutchison 3 Indonesia ("H3I", formerly known as PT Hutchison CP Telecommunications ("Hutchison CP Telecom" or "HCPT"), PT Cyber Access Communication and PT Telindo Inti Nusa) from the Charoen Pokphand Group Indonesia. In 2006, H3I announced that it retained Siemens to design, build and operate state-of-the-art 2G and 3G nationwide wireless networks. H3I 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, H3I's customer base grew to approximately 7.3 million.

In September 2021, it was announced that the latter company would be merged with Ooredoo's Indosat (who operates IM3 Ooredoo networks) to form Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison and was closed the merger on 4 January 2022.

Hutch Sri Lanka

The company's Sri Lankan operation, commonly known as Hutch. CK Hutchison Holdings Limited owns 85% controlling stake of the company while the rest is held by Emirates Telecommunication Group Company PJSC. Initially it was called as "CallLink" and was the second mobile operator in Sri Lanka. Hutchison acquired its services in 1998 with the aim of being a nationwide operator in Sri Lanka. , Hutch has a network coverage of approximately 90% of the entire island. Hutc
announced
that they acquired Etisalat on 30 November 2018.

Hutch Sri Lanka operates a GSM/EDGE supported network using 900 / 1800 MHz. In 2012 the company launched HSPA+ services using 2100 MHz. The company launched 4G via 1800 Mhz B3 from 2018 and 900 MHz B8 from 2019.

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.

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 31 March 2007 Hutchison Essar Limited (in Hutch Essar) sold its 67.1% stake to Vodafone.

Hutchison Orange Israel

Even after selling the Orange plc to Mannesmann AG in February 1999, Hutchison continued to use Orange brand 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.

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.

References

External links

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{{Major telecommunications companies

CK Hutchison Holdings
Members of the Conexus Mobile Alliance
Telecommunications companies of Hong Kong
Orange S.A.
Companies formerly listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Hong Kong brands
Offshore companies of the Cayman Islands