Smartphone sales soar in Brazil
Brazil’s smartphone market is growing rapidly, which could also push demand for data services.
Last year, smartphones sales were up 55% compared to 2013, totaling 54.5 million units, according to a survey conducted by IDC. When adding feature phones to the count, 70.3 million cellphones were sold in 2014.
Brazil is the No. 4 cellphone market in the world – China is No. 1, followed by the United States and India.
The survey also showed that 15% of all smartphones sold in Brazil last year were LTE enabled, however that number is expected to reach between 30% and 35% next year. As for the expected number of devices, IDC predicts an increase of 16% in the smartphone market for 2015, totaling 63.3 million commercial units.
Currently, the average smartphone penetration rate across Latin America sits at 31%. On the other side, as the adoption of smartphones increase, carriers are growing more concerned about how to monetize their network investments. Telecom industry trade association GSMA recently said it expects data traffic across Latin America to hit 15.9 exabytes in 2018.
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