Alestra sees revenues rising 12% this year

Mexican alternative telco Alestra says it expects sales to rise by up to 12% in 2006, reversing years of declining revenues as the company focuses more on data-based services, Chief Executive Officer Rolando Zubiran told Bloomeberg. The operator, whose investors include domestic industrial conglomerate Grupo Alfa, local bank BBVA and US-based AT&T, has long suffered due to the falling prices of long-distance calls in Mexico, but says that growth this year will be spiked by a rise in demand for what it terms ‘value-added services’, including data, private networks and security services, whose revenues are due to overtake telephony sales for the first time this year. Alestra posted sales of MXN4.07 billion (USD374.5 million) in 2005, a 19% year-on-year decrease, with long-distance accounting for 53% of turnover, down from 67% in 2004 and 77% a year earlier.