Telefónica Móviles held its Movistar presented today at noon, under the unified brand in Argentina of the Unifón and Movicom operations. During the presentation that was held at a mass auditorium and simultaneously with another 12 Spanish-speaking countries, Eduardo Caride, Southern Cone Telefónica Móviles leader, emphasized that the new company “will be an opportity for customers, employees, providers and distributors for Argentina, that will receive new investments from the Telefónica Group”. Later in press statements, the executive reemphasized the new company’s leadership in the market by making projections and referring to this year’s investments. Caride did not give details about the ARPU of the new company, but highlighted that it has a 43% market participation, and that out of the 42%, according to the quantity of lines, “what it indicates is that we have the best ARPU”. According to Caride, the relationship between pre-paid and post-paid Movistar users is the best in the market. In general terms he pointed out that 60% of the customer base uses recharging systemes while the other 40% is under the subscription plan. Likewise, Caride expects that the GSM network growth will be supported”, the Movicom heir. Additionally, he pointed out that the $450 million in announced investments by the company would be designated towards expanding its national network capacity and supporting growth in the user numbers. He also explained that a greater amount would be designated towards “capturing customers”. Finally, Caride estimated that 2008 would bring between 20 and 24 million mobile telephony customers, although he did not think that would be the market saturation point. Federico Rava, new Movistar Argentina manager, highlighted that with € 790 million, the company was ranked at 2004’s end in sixth place for billing volume. In addition, the executive reemphasized, that among other aspect, services that the operator will launch will be compatible for all customers, no matter what technology they have. He alzo reported that the service “Push to talk over cellular” (PoC) on its CEMA 1X network from the former Movicom BellSouth will sep its Movilink trunking service. According to Rava’s expectations, 50% of the Movistar customers operate on the GSM standard, 20% on CDMA and the remaining 30% on TDMA and analogues.