Zain paid a total of $747m for the licence and has committed to invest a further $800 million – it is unclear what will happen next concerning control of rival Syriatel
Zain Group has secured a 20-year licence that could be extended by a further five year to operate a mobile network in the Syrian Arab Republic.
This follows a competitive tender for the existing MTN network which was launched in March at MWC in Barcelona. It was conducted by the country’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCOT). Zain secured the award with “the most competitive and fully compliant bid for a total of $747 million”.
Zain will set up a new entity in Syria, Zain Syria, in which the Group will hold a 75% stake with a Syrian government agency holding the remaining 25%. The commercial launch of the Zain Syria brand is expected in Q1 2027, subject to meeting regulatory and licence conditions.
Zain is the second mobile network provider in the Syrian market which the press release issued by Zain called “one of the Levant’s most promising markets”. The country has a young population and there is growing demand for mobile and data services from individuals and businesses against a backdrop of improving socio-economic conditions.
A civil war in Syria was triggered in March 2011 with pro-democracy demonstrations against the Ba’athist regime led by Bashar al-Assad. His whose regime finally fell in December 2024; Assad and his family fled to Russia. Although the war is considered to have ended in 2024 by most, clashes are ongoing.
Making up lost ground
During a six‑month handover period, the Zain team will work closely with the Syrian MCOT and the MTN team to support services for the 6.3 million customer base. In January, the Financial Times [subscription needed] stated, “More than a year since Assad was toppled, mobile internet speeds remain some of the slowest in the world”.
Zain called Syria “one of the Levant’s most promising markets”. The country has a young population and there is growing demand for mobile and data services from individuals and businesses against a backdrop of improving socio-economic conditions.
Zain Syria will invest more than $800 million to expand and modernise the network with 5G network and Ai-powered digital technologies over the next decade, funded by income from Zain Syria. Zain Group says its “technical, investment and operational expertise will ensure efficient capital deployment, accelerate network development and enhance service quality and performance”.
Not known what MTN will be paid
MarketScreener reported that MTN Group’s CEO, Ralph Mupita, had met Syria’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Abdulsalam Haykal after the launch of the tender for its network. Neither side disclosed the payment MTN would receive for its 75% stake in the Syrian mobile business and assets.
MTN announced in 2020 that it would sell its 75% stake to minority shareholder TeleInvest for $65 million but the deal did not go through.
Syria’s second operator
Syriatel is the other mobile network operator in the country which was owned by Rami Makhlouf, a Syrian businessman and cousin of former President Assad, until they fell out about taxes in 2020 and the Assad regime took control. After the fall of Assad, according to a Reuters Investigation in July, Syriatel was stripped from Assad-era executives and run by a signatory appointed directly by a transition committee.
In May, after intense scrutiny of the secretive nature of the transitional committee as well as complaints about nepotism and the consolidation of wealth, President Ahmed al-Shara removed his brother, Hazem al-Sharaa, from influential economic positions including the transition committee.
The government launched a major push to restructure and privatise the country’s broader telecommunications sector, as it sought international legitimacy and foreign investment, and to curb the anti-corruption backlash at home.
Photo shows Syria’s capital city, Damascus, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.
