Wireless telecommunications in Latin America: A comparison of the market portfolios of America Movil and Telefonica

Abstract

With the growth of their Latin American mobile telecommunications markets slowing, regulatory pressures intensifying, and new entrants worsening an already unfavorable competitive environment, and in order to capitalize on the opportunity to increase revenues by providing new wireless data and video services to subscribers, Telefonica and America Movil management have begun to restructure their companies and re-think their internationalization strategies. This paper focuses on the two companies' Latin American market portfolios in 2008, comparing the portfolios with respect to the attractiveness of their markets and the companies' competitive positions in them, and how they changed from 2002 to 2008. The degrees of market attractiveness and competitive strength the portfolios possessed, as well as their variability across the markets in the portfolios, are considered. The portfolio analysis technique employed in the paper may have wider applicability for formulating corporate strategy.