RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s Oi, which recently merged with Portugal Telecom, announced it will have 500,000 Wi-Fi hotspots in Brazil by the end of this year. Speaking at the Futurecom event, Zeinal Bava, president of Oi and PT, said that the carrier has 319,000 hotspots to date, which makes the telecom operator the leader in proving Wi-Fi access to its customers. “We have a 97% market share,” he said.
In addition, Oi customers can also use hotspots provided by the Spanish company FON which has a partnership with Oi. FON owns 12 million hotspots worldwide. Bava noted that carriers are investing heavily on Wi-Fi deployment.
Oi is currently number three in the wireless market, with 18.64%. “We have a long way to go. There are four carriers in the market and it is natural that each of them will have a 25% market share. We want that,” Bava said.
Bava classified Brazil as having a strong potential of growth, since it still has low broadband penetration, few smartphones and low data consumption.
Consolidation process
Oi and Portugal Telecom’s consolidation is continuing; Bava said that together Oi and PT have a global ambition to gain scale and know-how; improve financial capacity; and lead in innovation and technology. “The principal synergy is the Portuguese language. We target expanding in other countries and other platforms,” Bava said.
As for the integration process, Bava said that 140 initiatives are being conducted together in 15 different areas of engineering and networking. The companies are also sharing human resources and best practices.
