Boca Raton, FL — TowerXchange’s Meetup Americas kicked off yesterday morning at the Boca Raton Resort and Club with about 250 tower leaders from around the globe in residence. They included executives from American Tower, SBA Communications along with Phoenix Tower International’s Dagan Kasavana and Vertical Bridge’s Alex Gellman as well as tower titans across Latin America. The focus of the two-day event is on the Caribbean and Latin America (CALA). Kieron Osmotherly, TowerXchange founder and CEO, along with Arianna Neri, Head of Americas, set the tone for the gathering with an analysis of the CALA telecom industry, which represents some 170,000 towers. TowerXchange pegs the worldwide tower universe at 3.4 million, representing $192 billion in asset value. They estimate the towercos own 61.9% of the world’s towers.
Brazil is the largest tower market (over 54,000 towers), followed by Mexico (over 27,000). Argentina, Colombia, Central America, Caribbean, Peru, and Chile round out the CALA list, each with between 8,500 and 16,000 sites. With a population of 11.3 million and mobile penetration if just 23%, Cuba is now on the radar.
American Tower owns or manages the most CALA sites, with SBA also a major player (ranked 4th), together with Jimmy Eisenstein-led Grupo TorreSur (5th place). Phoenix Tower International is growing fast and ranked 7th.
Thursday’s presentations included Brazil, Central America and the Caribbean, and energy solution providers. The event continues today with sessions on the Andean States, Technology Solutions, Mexico, Argentina, and a mix of roundtable sessions. Meetup Africa is the group’s next event, October 19-20, in Johannesburg.
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