Regional wireless giant America Movil which is
controlled by Mexican multi-billionaire Carlos Slim, announced on Thursday that
it has agreed to acquire a 100 percent stake in U.S. wireless carrier Simple
Mobile, Inc., a unit of T-Mobile USA. Simple Mobile is one of T-Mobile’s
biggest mobile virtual network operators in the United States. T-Mobile USA
is the subsidiary of Deutsche Telecom AG.
According to figures released in March 2012, America
Movil is the largest provider of telecommunications services in the Americas
with 246 million cellular subscribers.
The Mexico City-based company said the deal was
subject to “certain conditions as well as the granting of certain
authorizations.” said while filing with the Mexican Stock Exchange. The filing
did not indicate the cost of the acquisition. Simple Mobile provides service to
more than 1 million subscribers and offers voice, text messaging, data and
wireless broadband services, the filing said.
Accordingly, Tracfone Wireless, U.S. unit of America
Movil, will acquire California-based Simple Mobile “in the second quarter of
2012.”
The deal was made public three days after America
Movil announcement that it was seeking a stake of up to 28 percent in KPN, a Dutch
telecom company, to expand its presence in Europe.
America Movil, which operates in 19 countries across
the Americas includes Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, the
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua,
Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, the United States and Uruguay.
It was founded in the 1990s as a unit of Mexico
City-based fixed-line giant Telmex but was spun off from its parent company in
2000. Over time, it became bigger than Telmex. In 2010, Carlos Slim, the
world’s richest person with a net worth of $74 billion, unified control of his
companies under America Movil.
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