Some of you may remember, that AT&T just recently closed a deal on another Mexican carrier, lusacell. Now it looks like AT&T is continuing their growth into Mexico. As this morning, we’re hearing that they are going to acquire Nextel Mexico for about $1.875 billion. It’s all part of AT&T’s plan to expand across North America and cover nearly 400 million people.
While the deal for Lusacell was $2.5 billion, Nextel Mexico is stated to be about $1.875 billion. Nextel Mexico only has about 3 million customers on their network, but they do cover about 76 million. According to a statement from AT&T, this morning:
“Combining Nextel Mexico with Iusacell will allow AT&T to more quickly improve and expand its mobile Internet service to the benefit of millions of Mexicans, particularly those who live outside major metropolitan areas, than it could otherwise do without the transaction.”
The second largest US carrier is expecting this deal to close sometime in mid-2015. It could be sooner or later, depending on when all the regulatory stuff gets approved.
It’s interesting seeing AT&T buying up these Mexican carriers right now. It looks like AT&T definitely wants to expand outside of the US. We had heard that AT&T was looking to expand into Europe and possibly buy a stake in Vodafone. But that looks like it’s not going to happen as they are going after carriers in Mexico now. But it does look like AT&T wants to be as big as Vodafone is in Europe. Which is fine, as long as they don’t turn power hungry. Oh wait.
So AT&T buys another carrier in Mexico. What does this mean for Mexico? Are they just going to buy up all the networks down there? It’ll definitely be interesting to see what happens in Mexico with AT&T in the near future. What do all of you think? Let us know in the comments down below.