NII Holdings (NIHD), which operates under the Nextel brand in Latin America, launched a solution designed to allow customers to connect with each other and their social networks. Nextel believes that its service, dubbed “Contactos Nextel,” will enhance connectivity among its customers as it will enable them to find and connect with each other by name and instantly share all their communication channels including phone number, push-to-talk number, e-mail and social networking profile information.
Indeed this move is in keeping with the community approach the company has been touting in its marketing campaigns. Last September while announcing a new logo, tagline and graphic design, NII’s chief marketing officer Greg Santoro noted that “the concept of community is a really important part of our brand.”
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“With the implementation of this innovative, new service throughout our markets, we are enabling our customers to connect with their communities more broadly than ever before,” said Bob Ewald, VP of product management at NII, in a statement. “Contactos Nextel will allow our customers to more readily interact with their mobile communities through any communication medium they feel is appropriate, all within a single connected address book experience.”
During the first quarter of 2012, NII added 260,000 net subscribers to its network, bringing its subscriber base to 10.9 million customers, which is a 16% increase year-over-year. According to Wells Fargo senior analyst Jennifer Fritzsche, while the Q1 results were lower than what the carrier posted in 2011, the lower net additions were caused by the company pulling back on its prepaid marketing effort in Argentina, delaying PTT in Peru and meeting challenges in the Brazilian competitive environment, which lacks 3G phones and services.
Contactos Nextel is preloaded on all new NII smartphones and powered by Critical Path. The solution integrates social networking with mobile phone address books to unify consumer communications.
NII said Contactos Nextel is free and available to all Nextel customers that carry Titan, Titanium, Motorola i1, i940 and many other Nextel Android devices in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Mexico.
