Simple purchase shores up Slim’s US presence

América Móvil, Latin America’s largest telecoms operator by subscribers, plans to broaden its presence in the US market by purchasing a California-based mobile operator, marking its second acquisition announcement this week.

The purchase of Simple Mobile, which is owned by Deutsche Telekom’s American subsidiary T-Mobile USA, should deepen América Móvil’s already solid growth in the US. In a filing to Mexico’s stock market, América Móvil, controlled by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, said that Tracfone Wireless, its US subsidiary, had agreed to buy 100 percent of Simple Mobile. The company did not say how much it would pay, but analysts said the price was unlikely to exceed US$350 million. América Móvil now has 246 million mobile subscribers and operates in 18 countries throughout the Americas. Analysts say that its buying spree resulted from the combination of the increasing difficulty of finding new acquisitions in Latin America and a very low debt levels. The Simple Mobile deal would hand Slim more than 1 million additional customers in the world’s largest economy, boosting Tracfone’s existing 20 million subscribers.