Liberty Latin America completes integration of Claro Panamá

Liberty Latin America subsidiary Cable & Wireless (C&W) has concluded the integration of América Móvil’s Claro Panamá unit into its +Móvil network following the completion of the acquisition about three months ago.

The deal includes the migration of all Claro Panamá’s mobile customers into C&W’s +Móvil client base. 

“Now, customers of both companies have robust nationwide coverage and [are able to] talk to more people within their network,” +Móvil stated in a post published on Twitter.

The two companies will continue to operate independently in terms of brick-and-mortar stores, service centers, marketing and salesforce until January 16.

The LLA-América Móvil Panama deal was announced in September last year for a value of US$200mn. In June, Liberty Latin America received all due clearances to complete the transaction.

With the acquisition of Claro Panamá, Liberty expects to strengthen its position in the mobile market and compete with Millicom with packaged services.

Liberty Latin America's revenues grew 4% to US$1.22bn in 2Q22, driven by the addition of US$74mn from the acquisition of the operations of Telefónica Costa Rica, organic growth in C&W Caribbean & Networks, organic declines in VTR and a US$34mn net foreign exchange impact. 

Cable & Wireless Caribbean and Networks ended June with 1.69mn fixed revenue generating units (RGUs) and 1.8mn mobile subscribers. C&W Panamá ended the month with 503,500 RGUs and 1.4mn mobile subscribers.

Figures from regulator Asep show that 6mn mobile lines were in operation at end-2021, for penetration of 138%. The leading mobile players were Millicom's Tigo, +Móvil and Digicel.

Of the total, 5mn lines were prepaid and the rest postpaid. Some 3.7mn lines had access to the 4G network and the rest to 2G and 3G, while 43% of users accessed mobile broadband services.