Telenor Myanmar added Malaysia’s OCK Group and its local partner King Royal Technologies to its list of telecoms tower suppliers, as it ramps up its network buildout to meet its obligation to cover 90 per cent of the country within five years.

The operator said it has about 3,700 towers and will need about 9,000 sites for full nationwide coverage, the Myanmar Times reported.

It has existing agreements with Apollo Towers, Eco-Friendly Towers and Irrawaddy Green Towers to build and manage towers across the country.

A Telenor representative told the Times that the terms of the agreement, covering the number of towers and length of the contract, were still being worked out.

The country’s tower market is expanding rapidly as Telenor and rival Ooredoo Myanmar build out their networks after receiving licences in late 2013.

Axiata, which has operations in six Asian countries, announced two months ago its tower company edotco would acquire a 75 per cent stake in Digicel’s Myanmar venture for $221 million.

The Myanmar tower market is expected to be one of Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest growing telecoms infrastructure service markets, edotco said. The firm owns more than 15,000 towers in Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Cambodia and Pakistan, and after completing the deal in Myanmar, it will have about 16,200 towers across Asia Pacific.