LATAM Telecom

We recently posted about Millicom's success in Latin America, where it is positioned as a reliable operator with strong customer loyalty. The Latin American market continues to grow and Millicom is benefitting from this, but it has also managed to gain market share from the two giants in the region, America Movil and Telefonica Movistar. The question is how is Millicom doing this? Both heavyweights have consolidated their leadership in Latin America; they compete head to head in most of the region (America Movil operates in 16 countries, Telefonica Movistar in 13) and both surpassed the 100 million mark a couple of years ago. Both operators seem intent to compete by continually trying to differentiate themselves with new products and services. However, in most cases, it only takes a few months for the other to catch up. Most recently, both operators were ready to kill each other over the iPhone. America Movil got a headstart but in the end, Telefonica was able to mitigate any possi...

Big news from several sources including Cellular News : In a very short statement, Vodafone announced that it has secured an agreement to launch Apple's iPhone in ten countries. "Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia , the Czech Republic , Egypt , Greece , Italy , India , Portugal , New Zealand , South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network." Interestingly, TIM Italia also announced that they will offer the iPhone, making that country the first to offer the handset with multiple operators. We are still waiting for the official announcement regarding Latin America. With the Vodafone agreement in multiple countries, which apparently Apple was hesitant to do, we can now expect something similar from America Movil and Telcel. America Movil has 16 operations in the region including the largest operator in Latin America, Telcel Mexico. Neither TIM, Vodafone or the last announcement before these two, Rogers Canada, have g...

This week we reported on the strong rumors surruounding the launch of a 3G version of the iPhone. Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg was quoted by several sources stating that an iPhone capable of connecting to faster, "3G" mobile networks is coming "in 60 days." Just yesterday, I found a retraction from Mr. Mossberg in the Thursday edition of FierceWireless newsletter. The whole incident is hysterically funny with bloggers like Peter Kafka from the Silicon Alley Insider using the following headline: Mossberg: I Have No Idea When 3G iPhone Is Coming, And I Don't Care. However, Mossberg's crappy attitude and immediate disclaimer say more about the whole situation than his actual statements. Reading between the lines and knowing how Apple reacts when they believe their trade secrets are leaked, it coudn't surpise me that Mr. Mossberg had received a cease and desist or something to that effect from Apple's lawyers. We still believe the 3...

With the leak to El Universal informing us that Telcel will launch the iPhone later this year, we can expect intense competition for the iPhone in the rest of the region. It was clear that Apple was not going to favor a global operator over another one. However, it is unlikely that neither Telefonica nor America Movil were willing to accept this condition, so we can probably expect now that the rest of the America Movil operations will be rushing to prepare for the iPhone launch, beginning with the largest markets: Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. Given this scenario, the other big players in the region, Vivo, Tim Brazil, Personal Argentina will have to come up with a strategy to counter the iPhone hype. This is a good opportunity for operators to revamp their messaging and data strategies. So far, the intense competition between operators in the region has consisted mainly of trying to outdo each other with the end result being a very standard offering, where subscribers cannot really...

From Mexican newspaper EL UNIVERSAL ( link ), and also reported by Cellular News ( link ), Telcel has finalized negotiations to launch the iPhone in Mexico. Interestingly, this comes the same week when news sources reported that Telefonica was closing an agreement with Apple for iPhone exclusivity in Latin America. As we reported here before, launching the iPhone with Telcel should be a no brainer, as it is the largest operator in Latin America, with almost 50M subscribers. It will be interesting to see what happens in Brazil and Argentina, who are very likely next in line for the launch of this groundbreaking handset.

From adnmundo.com (link here ) and tusbuscadores.com (link here ) we learn that apparently Telefonica is moving to close negotiations for a regional agreement to launch the iPhone in Latin America. We had mentioned here previously that America Movil and Telefonica were both after the distribution and Apple was negotiating on a per country per operator basis. Apparently this may have changed if the rumors that Apple will join forces with Telefonica are true. We had also mentioned that negotiations with America Movil were not going to be easy and that Apple's conditions, which include revenue share on data revenues, were very likely going to be unacceptable to America Movil. America Movil's leadership in Latin America is precisely what makes negotiations with them extremely difficult and for sure Telefonica will jump at the chance of winning this deal. Even though they have a similar number of subscribers in the region (both topped 100M in the last couple of years), America Mov...

We had heard that both America Movil and Telefonica were in talks with Apple to launch the iPhone in Latin America (see here ), with operations in Brazil and Mexico as the prime candidates. It was expected that negotiations were not going to be easy, both companies and particularly America Movil are well known to be tough negotiators. Apple, however, has given no indication that it will change its business strategy, which consists of no exclusive agreements with global operators, which means it can launch with America Movil in Mexico and with Telefonica in Brazil). Apple's strategy is to have separate negotiations country/operator and exclusivity for one single operator per country. In addition, Apple is not backing down from the revenue share deal it has with its current partners, despite tough negotiations in Japan, China and other countries (see here ). It is now reported by Folha Online that Telefonica and Apple are in the final stages of negotiation to launch the iPhone in Bra...

Comverse at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was selected as a finalist for the 2008 GSMA Global Mobile Award in the Best Mobile Messaging Service category. They showed us not only their iPhone Visual VoiceMail but also other demos for different types of handsets for non iPhone operators and segments. This is probably the single most important breaktrhough innovation in VoiceMail since it was launched. Interestingly, the breakthrough came form an outsider, breaking all the rules to which both operators and handset vendors had played for years. As we have reported here before, there are strong rumors that Telcel Mexico and Claro Brazil are next in line to launch the iPhone. Given the size of the market and the dominance of both operators, it's a non brainer Apple might want to partner with them. The question is, will Venezuela and Argentina also be considered, given the size and importance of both markets. Venezuela, for example, is expected to be similar in size as Brazil for mes...

According to Cellular News , Apple also has reached exclusive deals with T-Mobile in Germany and France Telecom , and is expected to reach exclusive deals with operators in Russia and China. The article points out how Apple's strategy may limit their potential in the long term, since cellphone industry giants are fighting back with cellphones of their own to counter the iPhone. Apple's strategy is to work through exclusive deals such as AT&T in the USA. What about Latin America? We have heard rumors since the hype of the iPhone launch started earlier this year, that both America Movil and Telefonica were in talks with Apple. So far it seems that Apple is only willing to do a negotiation per country, which leaves the door open to different scenarios. According to Telecompaper , Claro is in talks for iPhone contract. Telcel Mexico officially addressed the issue in June this year through their spokesperson, Patricia Ramirez ( source ) where she stated the operator's inter...