France Telecom had submitted a €51 million bid for a mobile phone license in Armenia, a Dow Jones report said.
'We confirm that Orange has submitted a formal offer to the Armenian Telecommunications Commission for the acquisition of a national mobile operator license,' a company spokesman quoted by the Dow Jones report, said, referring to the Orange brand under which most of France Telecom's businesses operate.
The bid sees the French telecom giant following through on its promise to expand modestly into new markets after it scrapped its unpopular $42 billion bid for Nordic operator TeliaSonera AB in June, the report said.
France Telecom bid higher than the €45.6 million offered by Sweden's Tele2 and the €31.7 million bid from Anglo-Irish consortium CEO Blackrock Communication, the Russian news agency Prime-Tass reported, citing Andranik Manukyan, the chairman of the tender commission and an adviser to the Armenian president.
The license winner will be officially announced within three days, Prime-Tass quoted Manukyan as saying.