Snapshot: Internet in Argentina

Mobile internet service in Argentina had 35.3mn accesses at the end of the first half, up 7.8% on a year earlier, according to statistics office Indec.

Residential mobile accesses increased 8.2% to 31.7mn while corporate accesses rose 4.6% to 3.66mn.

Fixed internet lines grew 1.3% compared to end-2H21 to 7.86mn, driven by residential connections that represented 94.7% of the total.

Fixed household accesses increased 1.6% to 7.44mn, while corporate accesses fell 2.7% to 418,561.

Indec does not provide information on connection speed but according to telecom regulator Enacom at the end of 2021 the average fixed internet speed reached 52.3Mbps.

Buenos Aires city and province accounted for 21.8mn internet accesses, fixed and mobile, followed by Córdoba province with 3.78mn and Santa Fe with 3.33mn.

All Argentine provinces saw a rise in the number of internet accesses. The provinces showing the fastest growth were Santiago del Estero (11.6%) and Misiones (11%), driven by the expansion of mobile telephony of 12.1% and 12.6%, respectively.

In the case of fixed internet, 11 of 24 provinces saw a drop in accesses, led by Catamarca (down 15.3%) and Mendoza (down 9.3%). Meanwhile, La Rioja saw its fixed access base grow 10.4% while Corrientes’ rose 8.6%. In Buenos Aires city and province the rise was 2.6%.

Market share

As of end-June, 96% of fixed and mobile residential accesses were provided by companies that have more than 1mn accesses, while 3% corresponded to companies that provide between 30,000 and a million accesses.

The rest correspond to companies with fewer than 30,000 accesses.

Movistar (Telefónica), Claro (América Móvil) and Personal (Telecom Argentina) share the Argentine mobile market almost equally.

In the case of fixed internet, the largest number of broadband accesses are in the hands of Telecom Argentina with 4.2mn, according to its latest results report. Other important operators are Telecentro, Movistar, Supercanal and Claro.