America Movil aims to end 2022 with 5G coverage in 100 cities across Mexico
Mexican telecom group America Movil ended the third quarter of the year with 5G coverage in 64 cities across the country, the carrier said in its earnings statement.
The telco had ended the previous quarter with 40 cities with 5G coverage in Mexico.
“We have continued with the migration of traffic and subscribers over to our 5G network,” America Movil said.
The telco noted that 5G services are helping to increase the demand for postpaid mobile plans in the Mexican market, which is dominated by prepaid lines. “In the third quarter we added 443,000 wireless subscribers—402,000 prepaid clients and 41,000 postpaids—to finish September with 81.8 million wireless subscribers, 3.1% more than a year before. We have seen improving trends in postpaid growth linked to our 5G offers,” the carrier said.
The company’s CEO Daniel Hajj previously said that the company was seeing a solid migration of users from 4G to 5G, which is increasing the telco’s Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). The telco aims to have nearly 100 Mexican cities covered with 5G technology by the end of this year.
In February, America Movil launched 5G services in 18 of Mexico’s largest cities, reaching more than 48 million people.
The company, which operates in the mobile telephony segment through the Telcel brand, initially launched 5G in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara, Tijuana and Puebla, among other cities.
America Movil operates in at least 10 markets, mainly in Latin America. In Europe, the telco partially owns dutch telco KPN and Austrian operator Telekom Austria.
The telco also said it had launched 5G services in Brazil in July in the 3.5 GHz spectrum band in 27 cities. “Claro Brasil also launched new postpaid plans designed for high data consumers in 5G,” America Movil said.
Rival operator AT&T recently activated 5G services in Tijuana, Mexicali, Ciudad Juárez, Mazatlan, Ciudad Obregon, Navojoa, Guasave, Ensenada, Puerto Penasco and Guamuchil. At the same time, the carrier said that it is also expanding 5G coverage in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey.
AT&T Mexico said it expects its 5G network infrastructure to reach 25 new cities across Mexico before the end of 2022. The carrier had initially launched 5G services in Mexico in December last year using spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band.
The initial coverage of AT&T’s 5G network was limited to the Cuauhtémoc and the Napoles districts in Mexico City.
Meanwhile, Mexican telco Movistar, owned by Spanish telecommunications company Telefonica, previously said it was considering a launch of 5G in Mexico via a network sharing agreement with AT&T.
“We are starting our plan to do tests and start the deployment as well. We are going to use the coverage that AT&T uses, as they launch in these cities we will launch the service,” Aya had said. The executive also said that the telco is in process to evaluate 5G plans, market conditions and the technological infrastructure necessary to support the network in Mexico.
