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The confinement of Colombians that already surpassed the month has turned the four major Internet Service providers – ISP Claro, Movistar, Tigo and ETB in the country into key players. The demand for fixed networks has increased by 40% and mobile networks by 12%, with an increase in voice calls and in high data transfer rates in video streaming services (platforms such as Netflix), telecommuting and study virtual. Avantel and HughesNet (satellite) have a smaller market share.
All of them have had to take measures to respond to the growing demand for the internet, which ranges from increases in contracted speed, free premium content and pending facilities. In the future, they also expect benefits in the change of habits that this pandemic will generate in work, education and leisure.
Carlos Slim Helú, owner of Claro, has been accused of a dominant position due to his high market share
Of course, it owns 46.01% of the telephony stake and is undoubtedly the market leader. Its owner is the Mexican magnate Carlos Slim Helú, founder of the Carso group, which started in the real estate and construction sector. In 1982, with the nationalization of banking, he invested in several companies and built wealth, which in 1990 would allow him to take advantage of the privatization of Telefonos de México and to do so in conjunction with other international telecommunications companies.
His great success was América Móvil, a company that was born out of Mexico Telephones but concentrated on mobile telephony, a sector that was gaining prominence and that managed to position itself in several Latin American countries under the Claro brand. When the time came, it allowed him to take over the entirety of Telmex. This gave Slim control of 70% of the mobile telephony market in Mexico and more than 80% of the fixed lines. Slim became the first non-American to become the richest person in the world, according to Forbes, in 2010 and was able to retain his place for four consecutive years.
Telephony is only one of its interests since it also develops projects and activities in construction, retail, mass consumption, banking, mining and tobacco, among others. Known as “the engineer”, he is close to political power although in conflict for years with the current President Andrés Manuel Lopéz Obrador. He will turn 80 with a lifestyle that seems not to be that of an ostentatious millionaire, at least in some details, such as having lived for 40 years in the same house in the neighborhood of his childhood or his predilection for driving his car to go to work instead of having a driver.
José María Álvarez-Pallete has been restructuring the company to improve its financial statements
Movistar is the brand used by Telefónica for Spain and Latin America. The National Telephone Company of Spain was founded in Madrid in 1924 and 20 years later the Spanish state became 79.6% of the company. In the 90s, the time of privatizations, it became a 100% private company and changed its name to Telefónica. Its operation includes, in addition to Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom, ten countries in Latin America. Europe and Brazil represent 77% of its income.
Movistar entered Colombia in 2004 as a mobile telephony operator after the acquisition and purchase of all BellSouth subsidiaries in Latin America, which included Celumóvil, Celumóvil de la Costa and Cocelco. For 2006, it took control of Colombia Telecom, unified the companies and changed the name to Movistar.
Its largest shareholders are financial entities, BBVA with 5.13%, Caixabank that with other group companies adds more than 6%, Blackrock (5.226%), Norges Bank (3.02%), companies to which CEO José María Álvarez-Pallete has been accounting for them since 2016. The high indebtedness of the company and the weakness of income have made it lose in recent years nearly 30% of its value, mainly burdened by the drop in income in Latin America. Last year, it had to undergo an expensive restructuring process mainly in Spain.
Cristina Stenbeck was the architect of the purchase of Tigo-UNE by Millicom
At 24 years old, the Swedish Cristina Stenbeck was already managing the threads of Millicom, part of the Kinnevik group, created by her father Jan Hugo Stenbeck, who died of a heart attack at only 59 years old in 2002. Visionary, she quickly entered the world on-line big, coming out of the Swedish borders. She is owed substantial changes, such as simplification of the structure, consolidation of ownership, and having increased Kinnevik’s participation in internet businesses and particularly in e-commerce companies.
Under his leadership, an investment path was drawn in emerging markets. In Latin America, through Millicom it has a presence in eight countries, being Colombia the only one where its market share does not exceed 40%. In the country it landed in 2006 to operate Colombia Móvil, under the TIGO brand, in partnership with UNE, actions that it would contribute to the merger in August 2014.
The risk was high because it was a partnership with a public company such as EPM, which kept 50% +1 share of Tigo UNE. Kinnevik took control by agreeing that 3 EPM shares have no voting rights, in exchange for $ 150 million dollars. The Swedes define four of the seven seats on the board of directors, and the appointment of the management team.
A year ago he stepped aside as chairman of the Kinnevik board of directors to pursue a further transformation of the company. Its focus is the group’s investments in health, financial services, food and fashion ventures. After returning US $ 1.9 billion to investors, he has canceled the regular payment of dividends, limiting them to when there are excess capital. She lives in Sweden where she moved to live in 2015 with her four children and her husband Alexander Fitzgibbons, to resume family roots.
See more: https://www.las2orillas.co/una-millonaria-sueca-la-duena-de-tigoune/
Sergio González Guzmán, Claudia López’s profile on the ETB
Cuban José Raimundo Martínez founded the Colombian Telephone Company in 1884, which almost half a century later became the property of the Capital District. In the 1990s, the company underwent enormous transformations, including the name that became the Bogotá Telecommunications Company (ETB).
The firm operated as a virtual mobile operator until 2013, when it was awarded mobile licenses, a year later it launched 4G services and subscription television. That same year, it purchased a 75% stake in local satellite communications company Skynet, and sold its minority stake in Tigo.
The majority partner with 86% is the Mayor of Bogotá, followed by the University District with 2% (also dependent on the Mayor), appointed in March this year Sergio González Guzmán as the new president of the company. In contrast to its good financial results and its million-dollar investments in fiber optics that have been profitable, the action of the ETB is not considered a good option in the market, since it prevails the feeling that nobody wants to inject the capital that the ETB requires to the updating of its infrastructure, neither the Mayor’s Office nor the private sector as it is a public company, subject to political changes.
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