the telecommunications company Millicom International will invest 700 million dollars between the years 2022 and 2024 in its operations of Guatemala, Honduras Y The Saviorthree markets in which its commercial brand Tigo serves a combined nearly 21 million users between telephony and Internet services and for corporates.
Tigo maintains operations directly in nine markets in Latin Americaof which six are in Central America, plus the businesses in Bolivia, Paraguay and Colombia, the jewel for this company that has been divesting in Africa to concentrate on those other American regions.
The official announcement of the investment of Millicom It was made this Tuesday during the Summit of the Americas that takes place in the city of Los Angeles and was communicated by the company’s board in the company of the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris.
The White House warns that the investment of Tigo is a development opportunity for those countries of Central America and will help stop illegal migration to the United States. Reports from the government of that country outline that Central America would have originated a migration of 4.2 million people in 2020. Another report, from the Wilson Center, indicates that 50% of migrants from that region are between 18 and 29 years old.
Millicom will invest $700 million to expand and maintain its mobile and broadband networks in Guatemala, Honduras Y The Savior for the next two years. This investment will boost the efforts of Millicom to accelerate economic growth in the region through increased connectivity, as broadband penetration rates in these markets are well below regional averages,” the White House said.
“The announced investment also responds to our continued commitment to a region where we see great potential for growth and development: one of the hidden treasures of Latin America. With the right infrastructure, or digital highways as we call them, we can have an incredible impact on the future of the region and its communities,” he wrote. Millicom International in a separate release.
After the divestments of the Spanish group Telephone in different Central American markets, Tigo has come from these businesses and has become the first or second operator in each of the countries in that region and has become the direct competitor of América Móvil, whose Claro commercial brand served 21.3 million customers throughout the region at the end of April whether in mobile, wireline or fixed wireless and satellite services.
The closeness between Millicom International and América Móvil by volume of users is also notable in the average monthly consumption of services and measured in money or ARPU, since Millicom says that Tigo users report 6 dollars per month, while América Móvil registers a consumption of 7 dollars per month in their clients from those countries.
Millicom sees several opportunities for expansion in Central America. As an example, in these three markets, the company claims to have 4G-LTE service coverage of between 80 and 90% of the population, while only 50% of the inhabitants have a device to take advantage of this technology.
Tigo of Millicom has 1 million homes connected to broadband Internet through fiber optics there, and adding that figure to the combined number of other operators, the penetration of homes reached with fiber optics in the region reaches 40%, another opportunity to the growth of the sector.
“A 10% increase in the penetration of mobile broadband services represents a growth of almost 2% of GDP in our markets, which is why the construction of these digital highways is imperative,” he said. Millicom in your statement.
The region of Central America registered growth of 7.7% in the cellular segment during the first quarter of 2022 for América Móvil and 4.4% in the fixed segment.
For Millicomthe market that reported the highest overall growth in the region was El Salvador, with 10.3%, while businesses Guatemala Y Honduras they did not reach a 1% expansion in the same quarter.
América Móvil entered 603 million dollars between January and March 2022 for its Central American operations. Millicom said Tigo’s nine Latin American operations reported revenue of $1.408 million in the quarter.
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