On Thursday, Telecom Corp. of New Zealand Ltd. declared that it sold its $9.9 million worth of stake in Auckland-based telecom Macquarie Telecom Group Ltd. The sale was made through Australian subsidiary AAPT. The size of the stake was not revealed.

The acquirer, Macquarie Telecom forays into wide segments including voice, data, mobile, mobile data and hosting services to more than 3,000 Companies.

TPG Telecom is striving to acquire some of the assets of AAPT unit and IINET is giving a hard competition to the former. The consequences will determine the third power in Australian telecommunications.

As per some sources, IINET proposed to buy AAPT's retail and wholesale units as separate businesses and that decision came after TPG telecom failed to realize the deal of full takeover of AAPT.

The success of IINET could pose threat to competitors Telstra and Optus. The acquisition of retail business of AAPT by IINET could increase its subscriber base by adding 120,000 broadband and 230,000 voice customers.

Presently, TPG has been leading the race with more customer base. TPG attracted 54,000 broadband subscribers, while IINET allured 22,400 new users in six months, till January 31.

Paul Reynolds, AAPT’s Chief Executive stated that the Company is entitled to sell its assets and he also cleared that the Australian subsidiary is not significant to its business.