Telefonica ups the ante in Latin America

Telefonica is buying in 10 million customers for $5.8bn to jump to No. 4 in the worldwide mobile operator stakes.

And the company's deal to take over BellSouth's Latin American operations will make it No. 2, or possibly joint first, in Latin America. "With this deal we consider our non-organic growth in Latin America to have concluded," chairman Cesar Alierta told a news conference.

Telefonica claims it will have 41 million customers in Latin America at the end of the deal, while rival Mexican firm America Movil claims 43 million.

The price-tag includes $1.5bn worth of BellSouth debt and assumes a total buyout of minority shareholders in the various country operations of BellSouth.

The US company can use the money after its successful joint bid of $41bn for AT&T Wireless. It expects to put $4.2bn in cash on the balance sheet after tax.

Telefonica now claims a total of 62.5 million managed customers for mobiles. This, it says, puts it in fourth place worldwide, with China Mobile, Vodafone and China Unicom holding the first three places in terms of subscribers.

America Movil, owned by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, now moves into the world No.6 position in terms of subscribers; the place vacated by Telefonica.

In market capitalisation, Telefonica is sixth in the world, after Vodafone, Verizon, NTT DoCoMo, Deutsche Telekom and SBC.