Business News Americas | January 17, 2011
Chilean telecoms operator Movistar, of the Telefonica (NYSE: TEF) group, is preparing to kick off a US$100mn investment fund to support technological innovation in the infrastructure network, newspaper El Mercurio quoted the company’s executive president, Claudio Muñoz, as saying.
“Until now, we as a country [Chile] have been focusing on how much technology we have. … This year, we’re going to begin focusing on what all this technology is for, for what we’re doing with all this growth,” he said. The idea is to fund new companies and new applications to make better use of the internet.
“The added value is in the world of applications. … We hope that a significant part of our business is moved from traditional connectivity to this world of applications.” The fund is expected to be ready by no later than March, he added.
As part of this focus, at the end of 2010, then-CEO of Movistar Chile, Oliver Flogel, stepped down from the position to dedicate his efforts to developing the Movistar Innova business incubator project, which Telefonica has been running for several years.
