Indonesia’s state-owned PT Telkom has decided to scrap plans to acquire New Zealand’s third largest operator, 2 Degrees Mobile, as the two companies were unable to come to an agreement regarding price.

Speculation of the acquisition started in August last year, and in November local media reported that Telkom wanted a 25 to 30 per cent stake.

According to GSMA Intelligence, 2 Degrees has 1.3 million mobile connections (Q4 2014), behind rivals Vodafone (3.4 million connections) and Spark Telecom (2.1 million).

Back in October, Telkom was also reportedly in talks to obtain a 27 per cent stake in Spark, as part of a broader strategy to expand into 10 foreign markets. However, Telkom said it could not disclose the name of the company due to an NDA with the targeted operator.

In August, Telkom, which runs fixed and mobile operations in Indonesia, revealed plans to launch a number of MVNOs in the Middle East and said it wanted to team up with Silicon Valley venture capital firms to better compete on global digital services.