[NYTr] Venez Tops Latin America's Mobile Telecom Connections
 
Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:07:23 -0600 (CST)


Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Reuters - Dec 19, 2007
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssTechMediaTelecomNews/idUSN1963488220071219?sp=true

Venezuela says tops Latin America mobile connections

By Fabian Andres Cambero

CARACAS - Venezuela will close 2007 with one of the highest cell phones
penetration rates in Latin America, driven by a surge in sales after
price cuts at a newly nationalized media firm, the government said on
Wednesday.

Telecommunications Minister Jesse Chacon said the South American
country of 27 million people would have about 23.5 million cell phone
lines by the end of the year.

Venezuela has set a goal of adding three million lines in the next 12
months.

"It has been the best year for the telecoms sector in history," Chacon
told reporters.

Chile says its cell phone penetration now stands close to 90 percent.

Chacon said Venezuela was No. 1, but his figure put the penetration
rate at about 86 percent.

Some European countries now have more mobile phones than people.

The Venezuelan connections are driven by several factors, but the trend
took off in 2005, when Spain's Telefonica entered the market and drove
down prices.

This year, the socialist government pushed equipment and call rates
down further after nationalizing telecommunications firm CANTV. Chacon
said CANTV's mobile unit Movilnet has recorded one million new
connections since May.

Oil-rich Venezuela has a large population of poor people despite being
one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America and enjoying a boom in
crude prices.

Lower prices for cell phones have allowed many of the poor to own a
telephone for the first time in a country where companies have been
slow to invest in fixed lines.

Oil wealth has lubricated the tropical nation's economy in recent
years, encouraging a consumer boom.

Latin America's top mobile company America Movil does not do business
in Venezuela. The parent of the Mexican firm tried to buy CANTV but was
pushed aside by the government's nationalization.

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