Tigo Secures Colombia Merger Approval, Taking 48% Mobile Market Share
Millicom’s consolidation of Telefónica’s Colombian telecom unit creates a dominant challenger to Claro, but strict four-year price freezes and mandated fee cuts will limit near-term synergies.
Colombia's competition authority has approved the merger of Tigo and Movistar, creating a national telecom operator with roughly 48% of the country's mobile customer base. The Superintendence of Industry and Commerce (SIC) signed off on the deal through Resolution No. 94169 of 2025, allowing Millicom to absorb Telefónica's local unit. The combined entity will now compete directly against market leader Claro, leaving smaller rival WOM with just 7% of the market.
Millicom acquired Telefónica’s 67.5% controlling equity stake in Coltel for a base price of $400 million, which adjusted to roughly $362 million as of September 2024. The Colombian government is simultaneously divesting its own shares in the business, a sale expected to raise about COP 855 billion, or $235 million, ultimately granting Millicom 100% ownership. Tigo formally assumed operational control of the merged mobile, fixed internet, and pay TV segments by February 4, 2026.
To prevent the reduction of major players from three to two from harming consumers, regulators attached strict conditions to the approval. The new entity is barred from eliminating, modifying, or restricting existing customer plans for a mandatory four-year period. Furthermore, SIC mandated a permanent technical separation of network cores, required the appointment of an independent external auditor, and forced wholesale access fee reductions of 12% to 24% for smaller competitors like WOM and mobile virtual network operators.
A Regional Scale Play
The Colombian transaction is the latest step in Millicom’s multi-year, cross-border strategy to build a pan-regional alternative to larger competitors through fixed-mobile convergence. The Luxembourg-listed company previously spent $1.7 billion in 2019 to acquire Movistar operations in Nicaragua, Panama, and Costa Rica, adding 4 million subscribers in Nicaragua alone. In October 2025, Millicom further expanded its footprint by acquiring 100% of Movistar Uruguay for $440 million.
For investors, this regional consolidation represents a bet that scale can slash per-customer costs at a time when the industry faces heavy capital expenditure requirements for 5G and fiber upgrades. However, the heavy regulatory oversight in Colombia highlights the fundamental risk in this strategy. Multi-year price freezes and strict governance rules will likely delay the full profit benefits of the integration, testing whether the acquired scale can outpace the cost of compliance.
