Abstract
Overview
The report provides key information about the mobile operators in Latin
America and the Caribbean.The countries covered in this report include:
Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras,
Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname,
Uruguay, Venezuela, and the small Caribbean island nations.
Topics covered include:
- Brief company history and shareholder structure;
- Licences and technology deployments;
- Subscriber evolution;
- Average Revenue per User (ARPU);
- Market position.
Key highlights:
Argentina
Telefónica' s Movistar, América Móvil' s Claro, and Telecom
Argentina' s Telecom Personal run a close competition for market share.
Previously, there were four mobile companies competing nationwide, but in
2005, Telefónica acquired Bellsouth' s operation, and the merged company
was re-launched under the trading name Movistar. One of the merger conditions
imposed by the government required Movistar to relinquish 42.5MHz of its
spectrum. The government is expected to launch an auction in 2009 to award the
returned spectrum to existing or new mobile operators. Nextel Argentina has a
licence for trunking rather than mobile telephony, but the service it offers
is similar to that of a standard mobile operator. Two associations of telecom
cooperatives, Fecotel and Fecosur, have mobile licences but need spectrum to
operate.
Brazil
Four companies dominate the Brazilian mobile phone market: Vivo
(Telefónica/Portugal Telecom), Claro (América Móvil), TIM
Brasil, and Oi/Brasil Telecom. Together, these four control 98.5% of Brazil' s
mobile subscriber base. The consolidation process, which had halted in 2003,
resumed in 2007, with the acquisition of Telemig by Vivo and of Amazonia
Celular by Oi. In 2008, regional incumbents Oi and BrT began the process of
merging. The remaining 1.5% of the market is shared between CTBC Telecom,
Sercomtel, trunking network operator Nextel Brasil, and start-up company
Unicel trading as Aeiou, which began a SIM-only service in September 2008 in
metropolitan Sao Paulo.
Mexico
In 2000, there were nine operators in the Mexican mobile market. By early
2009, there were only three major operators: América Móvil
(Telcel), Telefónica (Movistar) and Grupo Iusacell (Iusacell and
Unefon). Besides these three, Nextel de Mexico operates a mobile trunking
network using iDEN technology. Telcel is the clear market leader, with a
market share of around 72%, Movistar a distant second (19%), followed by
Iusacell (5%). Nextel de Mexico accounts for approximately 3%. In November
2008, the competition agency, the CFC, declared that Telcel has market
dominance and that it should be subject to tariff regulation. Telcel is
expected to resort to legal action to prevent such price regulation.
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