Business News Americas | January 26, 2011 | Patrick Nixon
France’s MCTEL may open a new office in Brazil this year as it seeks to address niche market demands for mobile device management, messaging using USSD gateways and roaming solutions, MCTEL’s managing director for Latin America, Yann Pognant, told BNamericas.
In December, the company opened offices in Mexico and Argentina, adding to the existing offices in Monaco, Singapore and Dubai.
Mexico was an obvious choice given it is the headquarters of the region’s largest telco, América Móvil (NYSE: AMX), and where much of the decision making takes place for MCTEL’s main and potential partners, Pognant said. And given the size of the region and the company’s focus on being close to customers, another office was opened in Buenos Aires to address the Southern Cone.
Now the next location is likely to be Brazil, given its size and growth rates, Pognant said.
“There are quite good chances that we’ll open an office in the coming months or year in Brazil,” he said.
“If you look at the market, something like 55% of the whole market is concentrated in Brazil and Mexico, and Brazil is some 35% in terms of subscribers, Arpu, everything,” he added.
THREE AREAS OF FOCUS
MCTEL said the company will push three product areas in the region: advanced messaging using USSD gateways, roaming solutions and device management.
Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) is a protocol used by GSM phones to communicate with the service provider’s computers. It can be used for WAP browsing, prepaid callback service, location-based content services, menu-based information services and as part of configuring the phone on the network.
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