Brazil’s Oi telecom: to the brink of bankruptcy and back

Photo: Sidney de Almeida/Shutterstock

After multiple delays, Oi, Brazil’s fourth-largest telecom, disclosed its Q1 2022 results on Wednesday. The company, which filed for court-supervised recovery in June 2016, posted net profits of BRL 1.78 billion (USD 335,580). The figures are a world away from the BRL 3 billion net losses in the previous quarter.

Oi also recorded BRL 4.4 billion in revenues – nearly the same result as last year, reaching “virtual stability,” as the market likes to call it.

The upturn appears to be a direct effect of Oi’s new business focus, as well as the sale of its mobile operations to the country’s Big 3 players (Vivo, TIM, and Claro) for BRL 16.5 billion, and a 7.2 percent cut in operational expenses. In a conference call with market analysts, Oi’s director of strategy and customer experience, Rogério Takayanagi, said the company’s judicial recovery process should end within...

Fabiane Ziolla Menezes

Former editor-in-chief of LABS (Latin America Business Stories), Fabiane has more than 15 years of experience reporting on business, finance, innovation, and cities in Brazil. The latter recently took her back to the classroom and made her a Master in Urban Management from PUCPR. At TBR, she keeps an eye on economic policy, game-changing businesses, and people driving innovation in Latin America.