Nextel Chile to relaunch as WOM

Nextel Chile, the former unit of NII Holdings that was sold in January to European telecoms investment company Novator, will relaunch in the Chilean market in July under the brand name WOM, according to a company statement.

Nextel Chile was sold in August last year to an international consortium of Argentine, UK and US investors from bankrupt parent company NII Holdings and then resold to Novator five months later.

The new company will face a competitive market in Chile, which Nextel Chile was never able to crack.

In December last year Nextel was a distant fourth in terms of mobile subscribers with a mere 339,410 clients, or a 1.43% market share, well behind Movistar (38.30%), Entel (35.61%), and Claro (22.72%), according to telecoms regulator Subtel.

In its favor, it has a high postpaid subscriber base, at over 60%.

Nextel Chile has 60MHz of AWS spectrum, which it won in 2009 along with cable operator VTR. Nextel previously operated only as a digital trunking operator but in 2012 it launched mobile operations along with VTR.

Since then VTR has abandoned its status as a mobile network operator in favor of the MVNO model.

Besides VTR, competition has heightened in the MVNO space with the entrance of Virgin Mobile, Gtd, Netline and retailer Falabella.

In a statement, WOM's CEO Chris Bannister promised a differentiated service based on price-quality, innovation and customer experience.

"We're excited to be bringing WOM to Chile. We're a different company and our biggest challenge is to revolutionize the telecoms industry offering Chileans what they really want," commented Bannister.

Bannister has been successful in growing small telecoms companies in Malaysia, Poland, Africa, Sweden and Asia, according to the statement.