The son of Carlos Slim, one of the three richest men in the world, Patrick Slim Domit inherited from his father the number one spot at the third largest mobile carrier group in the world, by subscriber numbers.

America Movil had just short of 190 million customers at the end of Q109 according to Informa Telecoms & Media’s World Cellular Investors service. The fi rm operates in 15 Latin American countries, as well as Jamaica and the US.

Unrivalled in Latin America (America Movil’s closest competitor is Telefónica) the big debate for Slim Jr now is whether or not he will attempt to expand the carrier business into other territories. It is not inconceivable that he might. His father, who remains involved in the strategic direction of the carrier, was able to capitalise on the 1982 economic crisis in his native Mexico—when banks were nationalised and the country’s fi nances all but paralysed—by  investing heavily in the nation, buying up a diverse range of assets. Might a global crisis precipitate a global spending spree?

Slim now ranks alongside the likes of Sunil Bharti Mittal and Saad Al Barak in the mobile industry as the leader of a developing market powerhouse that could well upset the established order by moving into more mature markets, or by combining forces with a developed market suitor.

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