  Recently the ATLAS and CMS collaborations announced the discovery of a higgs
particle with a mass of $\sim 125$ GeV. The results are mildly consistent with
the Standard Model Higgs boson. However, the combined data from these
collaborations seem to point to an excess in the $h \rightarrow \gamma \gamma$
channel. In this work we analyze under which conditions this excess may be
plausibly explained within the reduced minimal 3-3-1 model, while being
consistent with bb, WW, ZZ and $\tau^+\tau^-$ channels. Moreover, we derive the
properties of the heavy neutral and the doubly charged scalars predicted by the
model. We then conclude that at a scale of a few TeV, this model provides a
good fit to the ATLAS and CMS signal strength measurements, and therefore
stands as an appealing alternative to the standard model.
