Brazil's Telemar seeks 70 pct of regional LD calls
23 Jul 2002, 5:30pm ET
E-mail or Print this story
- - - - -
SAO PAULO, Brazil, July 23 (Reuters) - Brazilian telephone
operator Telemar (SAO:TNLP4)(NYSE:TNE) set out on Tuesday an
aggressive goal of carrying 70 percent of the domestic
long-distance calls made from its 16-state area to the rest of
the country in less than a year.
Until the start of this week, Telemar had been able to
connect its customers only as long as calls were made within
its operating area spanning from the state of Rio de Janeiro to
the Amazon.
But it won the right to offer long-distance calls across
the country on Friday after meeting a series of operational
goals set out under its 1998 privatization contract.
It will compete against long-distance firms Intelig and
dominant player Embratel (SAO:EBTP4)(NYSE:EMT), a unit of
beleaguered U.S. carrier WorldCom Inc. that has
tried to block new competition from entering its market.
Ronaldo Labrudi, president of Telemar's operating unit,
told reporters on a conference call Telemar's prices should be
on average 30 percent less than its competitor but he ruled out
a price war.
Telemar reckons Brazil's international and long-distance
market moves about 50 billion minutes of phone time a year,
equivalent to 7.5 billion reais. Of that total, about 3 billion
minutes, or about 450 million reais, move out of Telemar's
region to other states in Brazil, meaning its 70 percent goal
would equal about 315 million reais.
Copyright 2002, Reuters News Service |
