With the aim to buy a $225m stake in an Indian mobile phone company, Bahrain's national telecommunications operator has joined hands with a Dubai-based private equity business.

It was informed by Batelco (Bahrain Telecommunications Co) that it would take a 49 per cent stake together with Dubai's Millennium Private Equity in S Tel, an Indian mobile operator licensed to operate in six Indian states with a total population of about 230m people.

It should be noted here that growth in saturated domestic market has slowed. Still over $43bn on acquisitions and licenses since 2006 has been spent by Middle East telecom companies. The information comes from Dealogic, a data provider, expanding everywhere from Africa to Indonesia.

Iran’s third mobile license was acquired by a consortium led by Etisalat, the United Arab Emirates' state-controlled operator in the beginning of this month for €300m
($399m).