Latin American telecoms giant América Móvil (NYSE: AMX) expects to launch its greenfield operations in Costa Rica in the next 15 days, seeking to beat its biggest regional rival, Telefónica (NYSE: TEF), to the draw in entering the newly liberalized Central American market, company CEO Daniel Hajj told a conference call with investors.
Earlier this month, Telefónica launched a presubscription process and said that within weeks it would start offering mobile services in Costa Rica, where it will operate as Movistar.
"I think in Costa Rica we're going to launch next week or the next. In the next 15 days we're launching," Hajj said.
América Móvil - which operates in most of Latin America under the Claro brand - and Telefónica won spectrum tenders in January.
The companies have recently been granted the necessary numbering for 1mn lines; as such, they can now start signing up customers.
According to Inside Costa Rica, unofficially, Movistar will be using the 6 prefix, Claro will have 7 and state monopoly ICE will continue with its 8 prefix.
Telecoms regulator Sutel spokesperson Carolina Mora said the operators would officially announce their prefixes at their start of operations.
As regards América Móvil's relatively new operation in Panama, Hajj said that the unit was growing and that the company is focused for the moment on revenue generation.
"We're doing well in Panama. What you need to do in Panama is grow your revenues, because you do some investments and those investments need to have some revenues. That's what we're focusing on in Panama," Hajj said.
Launched three years ago, Claro Panamá is by far the smallest mobile operator in the country, with only 2.3% market share in July, according to Dichter & Neira Research Network.
As the operation has grown, its revenues are no longer considered part of the Claro Colombia operation and are now included as part of Central America.
No comments:
Post a Comment