In the midst of rolling out its 3G network throughout Latin America, NII Holdings L.L.C. said today it plans to alter its Nextel brand identity across the region. The changes will include a new logo, tagline and graphic design. However, the “club” approach, such as its advertising slogan “Welcome to the club,” will be kept. “The concept of community is a really important part of our brand,” said Greg Santoro, NII Holding’s chief marketing officer.
The company said the new logo is designed to support the company’s growth strategy based on its 3G network and focus on working through channels. Besides the 3G network, which will allow Nextel to bring new products and services to its customers, another growth pillar is to have new channels of distributions. “Since our customers are coming more from individuals we want to invest in channels such as retail, new and more places where people can interact to our services,” the company explained.
NII Holdings has focused on high-value customers, which has allowed the carriers to produce higher average revenue per user compared to others carriers. “Because of those aspects that are happening in all markets, we thought it was important to reinforce our brand. The timing is just perfect, because we are doing investments,” explained Santoro.
Those investments includes $1.7 billion NII Holdings plans to spend this year in the Latin America region, including Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru and Chile. Santoro noted that investments traditionally had been around $800 million to $900 million. Santoro noted that investments for 2012 might be similar to 2011 levels depending on what happen in the Argentina market where NII Holdings is planing to launch 3G services by 2013.
Peru and Mexico are countries where Nextel has already launched 3G services, but only with wireless broadband. Voice and push-to-talk services are planned to be launch “soon” in Peru. In Mexico, NII Holdings was awarded 30 megahertz of spectrum in the 2010 auction to support a 3G network. Full service, including PTT and voice, are expected to be available during the second quarter of 2012.
In Chile, NII Holdings and its subsidiary Nextel Chile secured 60 megahertz of 3G spectrum in 2009. As a result the company began to develop a 3G network and plans to launch data service in the fourth quarter. The company noted that voice and PTT services running across the 3G network may launch during the first quarter of next year.
In Brazil, NII was the winning bidder of a national 3G license in the government’s “H Band” auction. NII Holdings plans to launch 3G services in Brazil during the third quarter of 2012.
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