América Móvil consolidated its dominate position in the U.S.-based prepaid space, announcing the closing on the acquisition of Simple Mobile. The deal, which was announced earlier this year, adds approximately 1 million prepaid customers to América Móvil’s U.S. operations that are centered on the Tracfone Wireless brand.
Financial terms of the deal were not released, though some analysts predicted Simple Mobile could be worth around $200 million.
Tracfone currently serves approximately 20 million prepaid wireless customers across its various brands, including Net10, Straight Talk and SafeLink Wireless. Tracfone posted $1.08 billion in revenues during the first quarter of this year, a 24% increase from the first quarter of 2011. Simple Mobile offers prepaid voice, messaging and mobile broadband services running across T-Mobile USA’s network.
The domestic prepaid space has seen increased competition as the market for contract customers has begun to slow. A number of established brands have recently altered prepaid strategies in an attempt to lure customers, with Leap Wireless and Virgin Mobile USA recently announcing plans to offer Apple’s iconic device without a contract.
América Móvil has been on a shopping spree of late, having recently increased its stake in Dutch operator KPN as well as taking an increased share in Telekom Austria.
“While some European operators are still expanding internationally, the balance of power in the global market is shifting away from old European players to emerging telecoms giants,” noted Informa Telecoms & Media’s Daniele Tricarico in a blog post. “At the same time, new global players from the emerging markets are looking to diversify their presence with the main objective of bringing in the know-how and experience of operators from the mature markets.”
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