Mexico’s National Antimonopoly Commission (CNA) has approved the sale of Telefónica’s Movistar business, putting roughly 20.1 million mobile customers in new hands. The final price, exact closing date and sign-off from another regulator remain unannounced.
The CNA found “few probabilities” that the transaction would harm competition, according to a resolution reported on 2 October 2026. Buyers have six months to close. The commission’s board approved the merger on 24 September, 10 days before today, with four votes in favour. The parties formally notified the deal on 28 May.
Who Is Affected
Expansión counted 20.1 million prepaid and postpaid customers at Movistar. Its 2 October report rounded the total to 21 million in the headline. Either way, that’s a huge number of people whose phone service will change hands.
Melisa Acquisition, a consortium led by US firm OXIO and Newfoundland Capital Management, is the buyer. In April, it agreed to pay US$450 million for Telefónica’s Mexican business. The purchase covers all shares in Pegaso PCS and Celular de Telefonía, the two companies that make up Telefónica México. Through Pegaso, the buyer will also pick up a stake in GTAC, a fibre-optic network. The stake’s size remains redacted.
OXIO has outlined its plans. It intends to move the operation to a cloud platform and add satellite links and artificial intelligence services. In September, it said it would store customer data in Amazon Web Services data centres in Querétaro.
A Shrinking Business in a Concentrated Market
Movistar isn’t what it once was. It returned its mobile spectrum and no longer operates a national access network. Since 2019, it has operated as a virtual operator on AT&T’s infrastructure, while keeping its network core, customer systems and service centres.
El Economista reported that the unit’s pre-tax result improved from a €7 million loss, about US$7.9 million, to a €14 million profit in 2025. The same report said the unit lost customers, revenue and market share that year. The euro figures use a rate of 0.889 euros per US dollar, the rate at the close on 2 October.
The sale fits a wider pattern. Telefónica is retreating from Spanish-speaking Latin America to focus on Spain, Brazil, Germany and the United Kingdom. It has already sold units elsewhere, including its Chile business. In Mexico, América Móvil dominates a market where it leads in users, revenue and infrastructure.
What Remains Unsettled
The CNA said its resolution doesn’t prejudge permits from other authorities. When the deal was announced, Telefónica named the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (CRT) as another regulator whose approval was needed. Neither company has publicly said whether the CRT has granted that approval.
The clock is generous, but it isn’t unlimited. Approval runs for six months from the business day after notice takes effect. Expansión put the closing deadline in March 2027. The term can be extended once for a similar period if justified, and El Economista calculated that an extension would push the final deadline to the last week of September 2027.
After closing, both companies have 30 business days to give the CNA proof of the transaction and file data showing its final value in Mexico. Telefónica said in April that the price was subject to adjustment. The resolution warns that missing the filing could bring daily fines.
Why This Matters:
Millions of Mexican households and workers depend on Movistar for basic connectivity, and they’ve had no public say in who runs it next. The CNA’s finding that competition is unlikely to suffer is one safeguard. But Movistar’s market share was already shrinking, and América Móvil still leads in users, revenue and infrastructure. Whether the new owner can offer customers a real alternative depends on follow-through. Questions about customer data on a US cloud provider’s servers, an undisclosed stake in a fibre network and a pending CRT decision all remain open. Public filings on the final price and closing may be the clearest window regulators and the public get into how the deal actually ends; the resolution backs those filings with the threat of daily fines.