Mexico City, May 22 (Bloomberg) -- Pegaso PCS, Mexico's third- largest cell phone company, expects to reach one million customers by the end of this year as the Mexican market continues to boom.
The company, part-owned by Grupo Televisa SA and San Diego- based Leap Wireless, currently has more than 250,000 clients on its digital-only network out of an estimated 8 million users in the country, a number which could grow to 12 million by the end of this year, according to the government.
``We're sure we are going to go over one million users this year,'' said Roberta Lopez Negrete, the company's communications director.
Pegaso expects sales to rise faster than a booming market as it now offers basic Internet access over its phones, giving clients e-mail as well as the ability to call up limited news and entertainment information over their cell phones, with a consequent increase in the number of minutes they are connected.
This way Pegaso hopes to increase its market share at the expense of its rivals like Telcel, the cellular unit of Telefonos de Mexico and Bell Atlantic-controlled Grupo Iusacell SA that currently dominate the market.
Iusacell already offers Internet access, although Telcel has yet to follow suit.
Mexico is one of the fastest growing cell phone markets in the world, a growth rate that has caused lost connections as the systems have become saturated. The problem became so bad the government forced the companies to give users some free airtime in compensation.
``We had expected 70,000 users by the end of 1999 and we went over that in Mexico City alone,'' said Lopez Negrete. In December most Pegaso distributors in Mexico City ran out of telephones as demand was stronger than expected.
Pegaso itself reduced its marketing efforts last month in a bid to slow its own growth. Not even investing $700 million over the last year enabled the company to keep up. Pegaso will invest another $100 million this year as it begins offering its service in up to 14 new cities. Currently it only works in Mexico City, Monterrey, Guadalajara and Tijuana, which means users can only make calls in these cities.
May/22/2000 15:32 ET |
