LATAM Telecom

America Movil and Telefonica are the two giant competitors with presence in most of the region. However, there are other players in Latin America who hold up their own, such as Telecom Personal Argentina, TIM Brazil, Entel PCS and of course the Millicom group, who has become the third largest in the region and actually is the market leader in several of the countries it operates. Operators like Personal Argentina, TIM Brazil and Entel PCS have positioned themselves as leaders and innovators with new services and with a larger percentage of postpaid customers than the average. Their client mix also has a higher ARPU than its competitors. In other words, they have traditionally been the operators who targets the ideal demographic group for the iPhone. It will be interesting to see how they respond, given the fact that in just one year the iPhone has launched in several countries, the learning curve is not as steep as it was for operators like Verizon Wireless and Sprint in the USA.

Yesterday Telefonica confirmed it finally reached an agreement with Apple to distribute the iPhone in 16 countries, including its operations in all of Latin America except for Mexico. This confirms the rumors that America Movil did not have exclusive rights, and now the iPhone will be available in several countries by two operators. Italy was the first country to have this type of agreement. Telefonica already sells the phone in the UK and Ireland through its O2 unit, where it has exclusive distribution rights. Now, it will add the Czech Republic, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Out of these countries, only Venezuela was not included in the America Movil agreement since it has no presence in that country. In Venezuela, Telefonica is the largest operator. Note by Reuters and other sources.