Brazilian carriers Oi and NII Holdings posted losses for the first quarter of 2015. During a conference call about the results, Oi President Bayard Gontijo asked analysts and investors to trust the carrier’s reorganization plan and claimed Oi will return to profitability. The company has laid off thousands of employees, including some of its executive team, for a total reduction of about 6% of its workforce.
“We had, in recent months, great progress. We know it will take time to win back market confidence, but we are working on it,” Gontijo said. On May 12, a local news site reported that Oi has hired Credit Suisse to prepare the sale of its call center unit.
NII Holdings, which operates under the brand Nextel, reported consolidated operating revenue of $764 million, a 20% decrease compared to the first quarter of 2014. NII Holdings also posted a consolidated operating loss of $165 million and a $309 million net loss from continuing operations – the company’s operations in Mexico were sold to AT&T on April 30. In a statement, CEO Steve Shindler said NII Holdings has returned to subscriber growth in Mexico, continues growth in Brazil and increased operating income – before depreciation and amortization – driven by lower customer acquisition costs.
“Despite these improvements, weak macroeconomic conditions and lower local currency exchange rates continued to weigh down our reported results for the quarter,” Shindler said.
Rebranded: Following the completion of the merger between Cable & Wireless Communications and Columbus International, the merged company announced that the brand Flow will be used as the unified consumer-facing brand throughout the Caribbean, replacing LIME, and that Mas Movil and BTC will remain the consumer-facing brands in Panama and The Bahamas, respectively. C&W Networks will be the brand representing the wholesale submarine and terrestrial fiber optic cables, while C&W Business will be the business-facing brand across the whole group.
Connected region: More than 40% of Latin American enterprises already use some kind of enterprise mobile value-added service, such as mobile apps and “Internet of Things”/machine-to-machine services. According to a survey by Current Analysis, 85% of enterprises in the region expect their MVAS spending to increase in the next 12 months. Daniel Ramos, senior analyst at Pyramid Research, thinks this is a great opportunity for mobile network operators and technology vendors, as enterprises are making MVAS a top priority to increase the mobility of their workforce. The report also noted that LTE penetration will be a pivotal factor supporting MVAS growth in Latin America.
More news from the Latin American region:
MEXICO – Signal Telecom News reported that Telefónica might be interested in buying Megacable with the goal of reinforcing its position in the Mexican market. That follows recent moves by AT&T, which acquired Nextel and Iusacell.
COLOMBIA – The government released its Live Digital strategic plan for 2014-2018 focused on improving information and communication technology initiatives in the country. The plan aims to help the country make a technological leap by, in part, providing Internet access to a greater portion of the population.
REGION – DirecTV revenue in Latin America decreased 6% in the first quarter to $1.64 billion compared to the same period last year. The pay-TV company owns approximately 93% of Sky Brasil, 41% of Sky Mexico and 100% of PanAmericana, which covers most of the remaining countries in the region.
REGION – Verizon Enterprise is investing in the growth of cloud services in Latin America.
ARGENTINA – Comba Telecom was chosen to build a distributed antenna system infrastructure for the Ministro Pistarini International Airport in Ezeiza, and the Aeroparque Jorge Newbery airport in Buenos Aires. The equipment allows sharing between iDEN, 2G, 3G and 4G technologies.
