Few sectors of Brazil’s economy have undergone as dramatic a transformation in recent years as the telecommunications industry. Formerly a slow-moving bureaucracy where the customer’s interests often came last, its $18bn privatisation in 1998 spurred a wave of investment and consolidation that has still to be played out.
While privatisation remains a dirty word to many Brazilians, few dispute that the standard of telecoms services has moved on in giant strides over the past decade. In the scramble for market share, former forces such as Bell South and MCI have been and gone. Now, two regional powerhouses – Spain’s Telefónica and Mexico’s Telmex and América Móvil, owned by Carlos Slim, Latin America’s wealthiest man – have become the dominant players in the market.
