Mexico's Televisa seeking mobile opportunities: executive
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Grupo Televisa wants to continue offering mobile services and will explore its options after it sold its stake in Mexico's No. 3 wireless carrier Iusacell, an executive said on Friday. "We're out of Iusacell but we're not out of mobility," Alfonso de Angoitia, the company's executive vice president, said on a conference call on Televisa's third-quarter results. A telecom reform in Mexico, fleshed out earlier this year, means Televisa now has more options to compete with billionaire Carlos Slim's dominant mobile network America Movil , de Angoitia said. "We are exploring our options in mobile...the reform gives options that allow us not to have to make capital investments," he said. Spain's Telefonica , which is Mexico's No. 2 wireless carrier, is now said to be considering a tie-up with Televisa, including creating a new telecommunications company together, a person with knowledge of the matter said last month. Mexico's new telecoms reform includes the creation of a $10 billion government-owned wholesale mobile broadband network, which will allow companies to offer services to customers as mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs). The constitution says the network must be up and running by 2018. Televisa on Thursday posted a third-quarter loss of 182.8 million pesos due to the one-off hit it took on the Iusacell stake sale, announced last month. (Reporting by Christine Murray and Elinor Comlay; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
