Country profile: Guatemala

Since América Móvil’s takeover of Telefónica’s Guatemalan operations, Guatemala has been a two-player mobile market with América Móvil’s Claro competing with Millicom’s Tigo. As a result, the competition in the telecom sector has become fierce, with Tigo and Claro battling head-to-head in the mobile market. The country is experiencing ongoing unrest due to budgetary issues and the current uncertain climate is said to be affecting towercos’ activities as well. Guatemala has a long history of turmoil and towercos are well aware of the existence of local community groups who can influence the approval process for new sites.

 Tigo is Guatemala’s leading mobile player with 11.566 million subscriptions. In November 2021, Millicom, an international mobile and broadband service operator, that operates in Latin America via the Tigo brand, bought out the remaining 45% stake of Tigo Guatemala from Panama-based Miffin Associates Corp. For US$2.2bn, and as a result, Millicom now owns a 100% equity in Tigo Guatemala.

Tigo Guatemala is the most profitable business within the Millicom Group, with an EBITDA margin above 51%. In terms of assets, Tigo owns approximately 4,400 cell towers, two Tier 3 data centres, and more than 21,000km of fibre.

In September 2022, Guatemala’s telecommunications regulator SIT (Superintendencia de Telecomunicaciones) announced plans to auction unused frequencies in the 2.5GHz-2.6GHz range, following a request by the mobile operators.

Subsequently, Claro applied for 34 of the available 48 regional spectrum blocks, while Tigo applied for just five blocks, with a focus on larger spectrum allocations. SIT generated just under US$50mn as a result of the auction. In September 2023 Tigo and Claro both won bids for 700MHz spectrum.

In terms of the towerco landscape, SBA Communications entered the market as early as 2011 via an acquisition from Telefónica. In 2012, SBA Communications added Mobilitie’s sites in both Guatemala and Nicaragua. The company currently owns just over 600 towers in the market. In 2018, Phoenix Tower International acquired a small portfolio of sites in a private deal and has been expanding its footprint since, with a portfolio of just over 100 towers. An independent Latin American tower company Torrecom owns over 260 towers in the country. América Móvil has now completed the formation of its tower carve-out Sites, which operates over 3,000 sites in Guatemala.