Personal phasing out TDMA this year

Updated:2007/6/26 09:23

Personal, the mobile unit of telecoms operator Telecom Argentina, is phasing out its TDMA technology this year and expects to end 2007 with almost all subscribers using GSM, the company''s marketing director Guillermo Rivaben told BNamericas.

The company currently has some 10mn subscribers, with 91% using Personal''s GSM platform and the remainder on TDMA.

"I believe by the end of the year the use of TDMA technology will be very marginal," he said. According to Rivaben, the company expects to end 2007 with over 11mn clients.

"Due to current high mobile penetration, we are in a phase where it is more important to increase revenues offering new services to existing clients rather than add new clients," Rivaben said.

"We have the highest ARPU of any operator in Argentina and this is mainly due to the launch of new innovative services in the last two years. Today, value added services account for 27% of our revenues. Five years ago this segment represented only 5% of total revenues," the executive said.

According to Rivaben, Personal''s current ARPU is about 40 pesos (US$13).

Commenting on the overall Argentine mobile telephony market, Rivaben expects penetration could reach 85-90% by the end of this year.

The executive said Personal eliminated handset subsidies in the prepaid segment and maintains subsidies only for postpaid clients. According to Rivaben, the company is seeing an expansion in the postpaid segment mainly boosted by a product called Cuentas Claras, which is a hybrid product that combines postpaid and prepaid plans.

Referring to the corporate segment, the executive said Personal accounts for 70% of BlackBerry smartphones sold in Argentina.

"We do not only sell BlackBerry devices but we develop special applications for this device," he said.

Source: cellular-news