Upon arriving in Chile shortly after the confirmation of the acquisition of Telefónica’s local operations, Marcelo Benítez said the operator is focused on turning Movistar Chile’s red numbers into “Tigo blue numbers” and applying its business model to achieve greater efficiency.

Regarding the highly competitive environment with four mobile operators, he described it as a “short-term” issue. “We are coming to invest for the long term. We are here to stay,” he said.

Benítez argued that the industry’s structural challenge is that traffic in Chile is growing at a rate of 19% — at least at Movistar — which requires increased infrastructure investment, while customers’ willingness to pay is not rising. “That can only be addressed by being extremely efficient and having scale. In the current situation, for all four operators to reach that level of profitability and scale is almost an impossible equation to solve,” he stated.

He acknowledged that the Chilean market is highly competitive. “There is a clear winner, which is Entel, which performs very well and has a very strong brand. Then there are three of us fighting hard. It’s very competitive among the three. Our approach now is to apply our own recipe, which is different — much more focused on customer experience and on efficiency. With that, I believe we have more than enough to compete,” he said.

The CEO of Millicom emphasized that its bet on Chile is not based on market consolidation, since that is beyond its control. However, he predicted a market correction that would be positive “because it would result in operators that are much more solid for long-term investment.”

He confirmed that the sale agreement with Telefónica includes a clause under which Millicom would pay an additional amount in the event of market concentration.

According to Benítez, the rationale behind the acquisition is that Millicom’s operational strategy fits well with Telefónica’s operations in Chile, given their strong customer position. Millicom aims to strengthen that position while implementing a highly focused efficiency plan “centered on what truly matters and eliminating everything that is noise and does not add value to the customer.”

Benítez also addressed the leadership team for Chile. He said the appointment of Carolina Vallejo was not rushed, highlighting her financial background and ability to manage numbers. “She is a perfect fit for the Chilean operation,” he said.

Supporting Vallejo will be Paul Proaño as Chief Financial Officer, previously in the same role in Paraguay, and Charbel El Hachem as Chief Technology and Information Officer, who held that position in Bolivia. These are the only executives Millicom is bringing from within the group. “The rest is the local team, with whom we are already working on the new model,” Benítez noted.

As for plans in Chile, the priorities are to “strengthen customer experience and connectivity — that is priority number one. Then we still have some shortcomings in the mobile network that we must address, especially regarding service continuity and quality. After that, we need to transform the company into one that is more agile, more focused and more collaborative. That is how we operate in our other countries. Those are the three pillars of our working model,” he explained.

He also confirmed that the sale of the Plaza Italia building will move forward, although the process will be reviewed.