The market for MVNO services remains buoyant. Customers of resellers accounted for 4.6% of all mobile users worldwide at the end of 2018. This is up from 4.3% a year earlier and less than 2% in December 2011.
Mexican telecom giant America Movil (AM) recently struck an agreement to acquire 100 percent of Nextel Brazil from its co-owners, U.S.-based NII Holdings (70 percent) and AI Brazil Holdings (30 percent). They’ll pay $905 million for the business.
When the deal receives regulatory approval, Nextel will likely merge with AM’s existing Claro business. This will make use of Nextel’s substantial spectrum holdings in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
As the telecom world prepares to enter the 5G era, our GlobalComms team has been tracking major 5G auctions around the globe. Catch up on all of them here.
Today we’ll look at what’s happening in major markets in the Middle East. We'll explore what’s happening in the Arab States that border the Persian Gulf, with a focus on Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The wireless services sector in Latin America and the Caribbean has stagnated in recent years.
The region was home to 690.4 million wireless subscribers at the end of June 2018, up slightly from 687.4 million six months before, but well down from the recent peak of 714.1 million at end-2014.
As countries reach market saturation, operators are now concentrating their efforts on wringing more revenue from existing users.
The Italian government recently completed its sale of wireless spectrum, which has been earmarked as suitable for future 5G services.
The auction ran for 14 days and saw 171 rounds of bidding, raising over €6.55 billion. This was more than €4 billion higher than the government’s minimum target.
But the high prices paid for frequencies have raised eyebrows—and not just in Italy.
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