Colombia Móvil to spend USD200 million this year

Colombia’s youngest cellco Colombia Móvil has set out its investment budget for the remainder of this year, earmarking around USD70 million for upgrading its infrastructure, and a further USD130 million for other business activities. The company, which operates under the brand name Ola, will finance its spending through a mixture of shareholder capital and bank loans, and plans to increase its subscriber base to two million from its current estimated 1.5 million. It intends to encourage further take-up of its services by introducing new value added data services. Based on its current business plan, Ola stands to make a loss of COP500 billion (USD214 million) in fiscal 2005, revised from a previous forecast predicting anything up to a loss of COP800 billion (USD343 million).