Argentina, Colombia Excluded from Nokia Siemens Network Launch on Apr 1"

Regulatory obstacles mean that Argentina and Colombia will be left out of the global launch of operations on April 1 of Nokia Siemens Networks, the new joint venture between Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia and German equipment supplier Siemens, the companies said in a joint statement.

Antitrust approval in those countries as well as Russia is still pending, the statement read.

However, Pyramid Research analyst Sergio Cruz told BNamericas that the delays in Colombia and Argentina are mainly to do with administrative bureaucracy and that he is confident the merger and operations launch will be approved soon.

The 50-50% joint venture will include Nokia's Networks Business Group and Siemens' carrier-related operations for fixed and mobile networks.

"This joint venture will change the competition scenario in Latin America. Big companies are now huge companies such as Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens," he said.

The statement said the new merged company would be in a better position to offer operators the infrastructure solutions as the worlds of telecom, internet, media and IT continue to converge.

According to the analyst, Ericsson will still lead the market in the region followed by Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens in terms of sales to carriers.

These companies are in a better position to face competition from some Asian companies that have entered the market with very aggressive prices, Cruz said.

"With these mergers they are trying to develop better economies of scale in order to be in a better position to compete," he said."

Posted to the site on 30th March 2007