Oi says no operational reason for possible govt intervention

From an operational and service perspective, there is no reason for Brazil's government to step in and intervene in troubled local telecom carrier Oi, according to one of its executives.

Since June 2016, the telco has been in judicial protection, with debts totaling over 65bn reais (US$20.6bn). Recently, reports of an imminent intervention by the federal government have intensified.

"99% of Oi's staff is not taking part on the bankruptcy proceedings or involved in the negotiations with creditors. We are the 1%. It is business as usual and we have to do our best operationally, adding clients and generating cash, to offer no reason for an intervention," said Oi retail director Bernardo Winik on Wednesday.

Winik and other Oi executives held a press conference in São Paulo to showcase the company's new services and positive figures, such as net additions in pay-TV. Value-added service and data revenues grew 33% and 375% in 2016, respectively, with customer complaints falling by 14%, they said.

But the company has been losing mobile clients, especially prepaid ones, which executives attribute to Brazil's recession.

VOICE-DATA TRADE

Oi launched on Wednesday new digital services plans for prepaid and control users.

Through a mobile app or on the company's website, customers are now able to exchange minutes of calls for megabytes of data and vice versa at any time and as often as desired.

The goal with the elastic use of top-ups is to attract prepaid customers and increase revenue share in this segment, Winik said.

Oi accounts for 20% of Brazil's prepaid lines, but prepaid clients account for over 78% of its base.

Other features of the self-service Minha Oi app include balance account visualization, credits recharge, plan migration, bar code availability for payment and bonus consultation. Oi also expanded the monthly data franchise of control and prepaid plans.

The concept was designed internally and has no parallel in the world, Oi's mobility products and content director Roberto Guenzburger said. Partners include mobile app developer Mobicare and telecoms equipment manufacturer Ericsson, which is responsible for the integration of the network with the app.

75% of the company's mobile clients are smartphone users. Among prepaid ones, this rate is of 70%, but the self-service app is suited for entry phones.

Guenzburger said that the voice-data trade will be extended to postpaid clients with additional features to include, for example, the sharing of data among members of a family.