CDMA Operator Vivo Woos 300k Customers for Prepaid GSM Handsets

Brazil's leading mobile operator Vivo Participações has wooed 300,000 customers for its prepaid GSM handsets after three months of commercial sales, Vivo said in a statement.

Vivo, which is a joint venture between Spain's Telefónica and Portugal Telecom, said that 90% of the 300,000 were new customers, newspaper Globo reported.

Vivo started to sell its prepaid GSM handsets in São Paulo in December 2006.

This month, Vivo will start to offer postpaid GSM handsets to customers. The company will provide 23 models from six manufacturers.

The cheapest postpaid GSM handsets will cost 49 reais (about US$23) and the cheapest prepaid ones 99 reais, the statement said.

Current customers of Vivo's CDMA handsets will be able to switch to a GSM handset without changing their number.

Vivo intends to continue with its traditional CDMA network. "It is not our plan... at least for the foreseeable future... to deactivate our CDMA network," news service Info Online reported Vivo CEO Roberto Lima as saying.

The operator invested 1.08bn reais (US$514mn) to implement the GSM network."

Posted to the site on 23rd March 2007