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Carlos Slim boosts regional telecom presence

Monday, January 28, 2019


With the acquisition last week of Movistar operations in El Salvador and Guatemala for $650 million, Claro becomes the leading Guatemalan operator of wireless telephony, and ties for the lead in El Salvador with Tigo.

The main operator in Honduras, Tigo also operates in Guatemala.

Claro is the market leader in Nicaragua, and in Costa Rica is second to kolbi, the state-owned carrier.

Movistar, a division of Spain's Telefónica, and Cable & Wireless are the main carriers in Panama.

Claro is a division of Mexico-based America Móvil, with operations in most of Latin America.

Carlos Slim is the principal shareholder of América Móvil.

At the same time, Liberty Latin America until last week was in negotiations to acquire Millicom International, which owns Tigo, whose operations include Bolivia, Colombia and Paraguay.

Millicom in recent years sold most of its operations in Asia and Africa.