Further tower sales are afoot across Southeast Asia, with Indonesia’s Telkomsel and the Philippines’ PLDT each agreeing to shift more sites.
Telkomsel is selling another 6000 towers to Mitratel, building on a leaseback deal signed by the firms in September 2021 which saw Mitratel acquire 4000 towers for IDR6.2 trillion (US$435.2 million). This takes the total number of towers transferred from Telkomsel to Mitratel to 16,050.
CommsUpdate reports that the new sale and purchase agreement will see Mitratel deploy Telkomsel’s Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics services for real-time tower management and improved energy efficiency. No financial details have yet been disclosed.
Meanwhile, PLDT confirmed in a stock market filing that it has received PHP13.2 billion (US$237.6 million) for the 1,013 towers that constitute the second batch of a tower sell-off agreed in April this year. The full agreement will see subsidiaries of edotco Group and EdgePoint acquire a total of 5,907 towers from PLDT.
The deal initially specified that ISOC edotco Towers would acquire 2,973 towers – predominantly located in Luzon, Mindanao and Visayas – while EdgePoint’s Comworks Infratech would acquire 2,934 towers located in Luzon. However these figures appear to have been adjustd as in June 2022, PLDT closed the sale of 3,012 towers to EdgePoint for PHP39.2 billion.
In its most recent stock market filing, PLFT noted it has sold 4,025 (68%) of the total of 5,907 towers planned for sale.
