Werthein’s Vrio expands fiber footprint across Latin America

Vrio, controlled by Argentine holding company Grupo Werthein, said its fiber broadband services are now available in over 40mn premises across nearly 500 cities in Latin America.

The firm operates the brands DirecTV, for Spanish-speaking Latin America, and Sky Brasil.

Originally focused on satellite TV, in 2022 the company ventured into the fiber broadband segment in the face of users' declining pay-TV interest across most of the markets.

To offer the FTTH service, Vrio relies on neutral fiber networks, such as FiBrasil, V.tal, I-Systems and American Tower in Brazil, Metrotel (Argentina), Velonet and OnNet (Colombia), WIN (Peru) and OnNet (Chile), among others.

DirecTV currently offers the fiber service in five Peruvian cities, plus 32 in Colombia, 20 in Argentina, 180 in Chile and 36 in Ecuador. 

In Brazil, Sky expanded its FTTH services to 220 cities and plans to be available in 400, covering around 30mn homes, by year-end.

The group is also eyeing M&As to grow in the segment.

This month, Sky Brasil closed its first two acquisitions in the fiber broadband space.

It acquired the client base and the assets of ISPs Netsulminas (which operates in four cities in Minas Gerais state) and Level Link, which provides services in Fortaleza and Caucaia (Ceará state). The amounts involved were not disclosed.

At the end of March, Sky Brasil had 58,300 broadband customers and 3.2mn pay-TV ones, according to data from regulator Anatel.