Brazilians to spend BRL 158.8 billion on telecom services ⋆

Brazilians to spend BRL 158.8 billion on telecom services

Brazil has one of the largest mobile markets in Latin America due to the sheer size of its population. Healthy competition in the mobile market has helped reduce the price of mobile services in Brazil in recent years and mobile service providers have had much success in converting their customers from prepaid to contract plans. Mobile broadband take-up has been rapid, with around 213.7 million subscriptions as of March 2021, bringing the penetration rate to just over 100%. brazil telecom services

The Brazilian telecom sector should end 2021 with revenues of BRL 158.8 billion, up 20.3 percent from 2019, according to the IPC Mapas Survey, reports Telesintese.

The market grew by 5.5 percent year-on-year to BRL 139.2 billion from 131.9 billion in 2020.

Telecommunications services in Brazil are projected to generate 47.7 billion U.S. dollars in revenue in 2023, up from 40.9 billion in 2017. In 2017, Telefônica was the largest telecommunications company in Brazil, generating 43.21 billion Brazilian reals in revenue, followed by Claro Telecom and Oi.

In 2020, Vivo – a brand controlled by Telefónica – held about one-third of the mobile telephony market in Brazil. Meanwhile, Claro’s market share amounted to nearly 27 percent that year, the highest held by this company at least since the year 2000.

The country also has one of the largest fixed-line broadband markets in Latin America, though broadband penetration is only slightly above the regional average, trailing behind Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay, Budde reports. Amendments to the licensing regime adopted in October 2019 also require that ISPs that have switched to authorisations invest the money saved from lighter regulations in the expansion of broadband services.

The fixed line broadband market has seen rapid growth for a number of years, with a growing focus on fibre broadband. In 2019 the number of fibre accesses overtook DSL connections. Vivo has the largest share of the fibre market, followed by Oi and Claro.

The country is a key landing point for a number of important submarine cables connecting to the US, Central and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Africa. Several new cable systems are due to come into service through 2022, which will increase bandwidth and push down broadband prices for end-users. Investments have also been made into terrestrial fibre cables between Brazil, Argentina, and Chile.

The traditional fixed-line market continues to suffer from consumers substituting services for mobile and fixed broadband solutions.