Growth in Colombia’s ICT sector is outpacing that of the country’s overall economy, according to the most recent report from the National Bureau of Statistics (Dane), released by The Colombian Ministry of Information and Communications Technologies. The ICT sector grew by 9.5% between third quarter of 2011 and third quarter of 2010, the largest growth rate in 14 quarters. The average growth of all sectors was 7.7%. According to the ICT Ministry the positive performance was driven by the increase of broadband.
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When presenting the results, the government highlighted that in 2007 mobile penetration was 67%, while now it is 103%, and stressed the digital plan’s importance. Called Vive Digital, the national program contributed to the increase of broadband connections from 2.2 million to 4.6 million last year.
Last December, the ICT Ministry published a bulletin detailing the progress of its national digital plan, which was launched last year to overcome several barriers to massive connectivity to the Internet. In the third quarter, there were 4.6 million broadband connections. Of the total subscriptions to broadband Internet, 63.9% were fixed subscribers and 36.1% 3G connections (1.65 million subscribers).
Regarding mobile telephony, Colombia closed the third quarter with 47.7 million lines. Comcel leads in both prepaid (67.2%) and postpaid (56.1%) market share, followed by Telefónica Móviles with 32.5% in postpaid and 20.3% in prepaid. Colombia Móvil has 11.3% in postpaid and 11.9% in prepaid. UFF counts 0.5% in the prepaid segment.
