Régis Turrini

Vivendi in Latin America: Four Themes for Growth

Vivendi, the French international media conglomerate, considers Latin America a region that’s very strategic for the company’s long-term growth because of three market dynamics:

• The appetite for super-fast broadband, growing everywhere in the world, is especially great in Latin America. In Brazil the market for broadband is expected to triple in the next five years, reaching 34 million subscribers.
• The Brazilian customer is demanding a qualitative and quantitative upgrade of value-added services. Brazilian telecommunication and pay TV markets show a solid growth, and strong growth is expected for the next five years in broadband and TV, especially since penetration is still relatively low today.
• Though less than 40 percent of the population has access to the Internet, Brazil is already the eighth largest Internet audience in the world, surpassing the UK in October, 2010. Brazil’s online audience consumes more pages than Australia, Italy, and Taiwan combined.

Speaking about Vivendi’s push into Latin America, Turrini introduced GVT, a fully-owned subsidiary since 2009 and "the fastest growing telecom provider in Brazil."

GVT provides its customer base with a "leading, cost-benefit and innovative offer, with very high Internet speeds": 64 percent of its customer base has a speed of more than 10 Mbps (the market average is still under two Mbits). The company’s development plans for Brazil are ambitious:

• Expand network coverage and territorial reach in the key markets, adding 80 more cities in the next five years
• Maintain the edge in the super-fast broadband for competitive prices (specifically, the company’s goal is to offer 35Mbps at ~BRL100 in the next 12 months)
• Introduce new broadband VAS, while increasing VAS penetration in its customer base
• Continue to provide superior quality service

Turrini stressed that Vivendi intends to help GVT pursue this high growth strategy, touching on how GVT will leverage Vivendi assets to launch new services, including TV content (with Canal+), music (with Universal), video games (with Activision), home gateway (with SFR), Internet security, and home surveillance (with SFR).  He concluded, "We rely on the strength of GVT and its teams to pursue tremendous growth in telecommunications in Brazil."

"Keep an eye on Samsung, as we introduce innovative solutions," says Kim. "We're looking forward to becoming your 'smart' business partner."

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Régis Turrini Senior Executive Vice President, Strategy & Development, Vivendi Since January 2008, Régis Turrini has served as Senior Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer of Vivendi. He is a member of the Executive Committee. Mr. Turrini is also a director of various Vivendi subsidiaries, including Canal +, Maroc Telecom, Activision Blizzard, GVT and Universal Music Group, and chairman of Vivendi Net, Vivendi Telecom International and Wengo. He is responsible for defining the strategic guidelines and pursuing initiatives for the international development of Vivendi. Prior to this assignment, Mr. Turrini was Executive Vice President and Head of Mergers & Acquisitions, a position he held from January 2003. He was charged with assisting the Chairman and CEO in the divestiture of non-strategic companies. Mr. Turrini began his career as a judge in the French administration courts. He then joined law firms Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Jeantet & Associés and worked with them from 1989 to 1995 as a corporate lawyer. In 1995, Mr. Turrini joined the Lagardère Group. He was engaged principally in the group’s mergers and acquisitions business for seven years. He was appointed executive director of the investment bank Arjil & Company. He was then elected managing director and, from 2000 to 2002, managing partner, overseeing corporate advisory services. Mr. Turrini, 50, is a graduate of the Paris Institute of Political Sciences and a former student of French Ecole Nationale d’Administration (postgraduate public policy college). He holds a master’s degree in Public Law and a postgraduate diploma in French Literature. He is an attorney admitted to the Paris bar.