KOLKATA: Carlos Slim , the world’s richest man after Bill Gates, could be eyeing India as his next big business entry at a time his telecom firm faces stiff challenges in Mexico, its home market and also its biggest.Slim, the 75-year-old owner of America Movil , made a quiet trip to India about two weeks ago to test the waters and explore partnerships between Latin America’s leading telco and Indian business houses with telecom interests, three people aware of the visit told ET.America Movil’s high-profile chairman, worth $77.1 billion according to Forbes, is believed to have met Videocon Group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot as well as senior executives of some other mobile phone firms. The ‘Warren Buffett of Mexico’, as Slim is referred to, “expressed optimism about growth opportunities presented by the Indian telecom market”, said one of the people aware of talks with top Indian executives.Slim's business interests range across sectors such as telecommunications, education, healthcare, industrial manufacturing, food & beverages, real estate, airlines, media, mining, oil, hospitality, entertainment, technology, retail, sports and financial services. But the bedrock of his fortune is telecom.When contacted over email, an America Movil spokeswoman said, "We do not have any comments at this time on Mr Slim’s visit to India.” ET had sought details about Mr Slim's visit, his meetings with heads of Indian telecom operators and American Movil's India plans.A top Videocon group executive said, “Large international telcos looking to India for growth had evinced an interest to make strategic investments in Videocon Telecom and we are in discussions with some of them.”He declined to elaborate on ET’s query regarding Slim’s meeting with the Videocon Group chairman. Industry executives said Slim also met senior officials of a Mumbaibased telecom company and Bharti Airtel. An Airtel spokesperson, however, denied the development and rejected the notion that there had been any talk of a likely investment. “We strongly deny these speculations which are completely incorrect, baseless and without an iota of truth,” the spokesperson said.In January, Dhoot had told ET that Videocon’s telecom unit had received feelers from a Mexican company as well as an Indian telecom player looking to buy a 49% stake. He added that any deal would happen only after fresh rules on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are announced.This would appear to guide the Mexican billionaire’s moves as well. “The tenor of talks suggested Slim is scouting for a suitable Indian telecom partner in anticipation of businessfriendly rules, including those on M&A and on spectrum-sharing and trading,” said one of the persons cited above. The much-awaited spectrumsharing and trading norms are likely to be taken up by the Cabinet at the end of June. The government has also promised a review of the M&A rules and may make them more industryfriendly if needed.America Movil, which counts Brazil, the US and Austria as its biggest markets after Mexico, is facing stiff challenges at home. Margins have shrunk to their narrowest since 2013 after a change in law sought to deter a dominant market player, or one that holds more than 50% of the market, from charging competitors for calls on its network.America Movil has about 80% of Mexico’s landline market and 70% of its mobile market. The scrapping of domestic roaming charges have further hurt margins within Mexico. America Movil’s wireless service revenues and subscribers both fell in the first quarter of 2015 while margins shrunk to 41.7% from 44.4% a year earlier.Sector analysts said there is a strong business case for the global telecom company to expand its footprint to India, which offers greater growth opportunities than Latin America, Europe or Africa.“America Movil has strong reasons to look to India for growth as it would be tapping into the world’s secondlargest telecom market by subscribers where annual data growth is also over 50%”, driven by surging smartphone sales, said Hemant Joshi, partner at Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP. He said India, with its 1.25 billion population, offers greater growth opportunities than Mexico.Another analyst at a European brokerage said, “It would make sense for America Movil to explore an expansion into India, especially as it faces margin pressure in Mexico, where it reportedly cut prices recently to compete with aggressive rivals such as Grupo Televisa SAB and Telefonica SA.” America Movil has operations in 18 countries in the Americas and seven in Europe. It has a controlling stake in Telekom Austria AG, which also has businesses in Bulgaria, Croatia and Belarus.The second person cited above said, “This was the third meeting between Slim and Dhoot, who had previously met him in London after they were introduced by a common friend, who is an internationally renowned steel tycoon.” Videocon, one of the smallest telcos in India, is known to be keen to exit the spectrumdependent mobility space and has also been approached recently by Norway’s Telenor ASA for a stake sale.