Brazil closed November with 236.1 million mobile subscribers, reaching teledensity of 120.81 connections per 100 people. Prepaid continued to account for the largest portion, 81.7%, and the trend may remain like that for a while.
According to data released by Brazilian telecom regulator Anatel, the number of 3G mobile broadband subscribers, including data terminals and WCDMA, climbed to 38.8 million, of which data terminals accounted for 7.7 million (3.3%) and WCDMA 31.1 million (13.2%). GSM leads with 195.5 million subscribers (82.8%), while CDMA has 1.8 million subscribers (0.8%).
Among carriers, Vivo leads in market share with 29.6%. The Brazilian unit of Spanish Telefónica had nearly 70 million subscribers, while TIM has 61.5 million subscribers or 26% of market share. América Móvil’s Claro closed November with 59.2 million subscribers (25.1%), followed by Brazilian carrier Oi with 44.7 million subscribers (18.9%). Algar Telecom’s CTBC had 673,000 subscribers and Sercomtel 76,000.
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Broadband access
The number of both fixed and mobile broadband connections reached 55.4 million in November, an increase of 22.4 million, or 68%, in the past 12 months — an average of 61,000 new connections a day.
Of the total number of hits last month, 16.5 million were fixed broadband while 38.9 million were mobile broadband. Fixed broadband grew by 21.9%, or 3 million connections, in the past 12 months.
Mobile broadband doubled the number of hits since November 2010, adding 19.4 million new connections. Mobile broadband modems accounted for 7.6 million connections, and third-generation cellular (3G), including smartphones, had 31.3 million. Growth in 3G was 130% over the past 12 months, according to Brazilian Association of Telecommunications (Telebrasil).
Revenue and investments
The telecommunications industry produced U.S. $82.5 billion (R$153.6 billion) in gross revenue during the first nine months of 2011, Telebrasil reported. During the past year, revenue reached U.S. $100.61 billion (R$187.3 billion), equivalent to 5% of Brazil’s gross domestic product.
Brazil’s users of telecommunications services have paid the second-highest tax burden in the world in the first nine months of this year, the equivalent of 43.2% of net operating revenue of the sector.
TeleBrasil said that investments during that period were also significant, reaching U.S. $7.4 billion (R$13.7 billion) by end of September. At the end of the third quarter of 2011, the sector’s workforce was 470,400 people, up 12% compared with September 2010.
