Motorola to Lend Up to $2 Bln in Brazil to Wireless Operators
--From AOL.-- Cooters
Sao Paulo, Oct. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Motorola Inc., the world's No. 2 maker of cellular phones, may lend as much as $2 billion to wireless operators in Brazil that buy its equipment to build new networks starting next year, the company said.
Motorola will provide the money to companies operating in the global system for mobile communications, or GSM, commonly used in Europe and Asia, said Fernando Ordones, a spokesman for Motorola in Sao Paulo. Brazil's government will auction licenses for the new wireless networks starting in January of 2001.
Ordones was confirming comments made in an interview by Dante Iacovone, president of Motorola's Brazilin unit, published in Gazeta Mercantil on Friday.
A spokeswoman at Motorola's corporate headquarters in Schaumburg, Illinois, though, said, ``The story appears to be speculative in nature and perhaps the result of a misunderstanding or mistranslation. The government auctions on the GSM networks in Brazil will not take place until next year and actions on vendor financing have not yet been made,'' said the spokeswoman, Jennifer Weyrauch.
The financing plans by Motorola, which has invested more than $210 million in its production facilities in Brazil, comes about two weeks after Siemens AG said it will invest $700 million in Brazil over the next three years, betting on the expansion of Brazil's market for GSM phones.
The number of mobile phone users in Brazil is expected to nearly double by the end of 2001 to 29.2 million people, from 15 million in 1999, according to Brazilian telecommunications regulator Anatel. That number is expected to surge to 58 million users by 2005.
Motorola shares fell 0.5 percent to 27.
Oct/09/2000 15:58 ET |
