The state of play in Brazil’s telecoms race

Fueled by 5G and fiber broadband, Brazil ended March with 337mn telecom accesses, for an increase of nearly 400,000 over the previous month, new data from regulator Anatel shows.

Despite the monthly increase, some 8mn accesses were disconnected in one year, with more pronounced drops seen in landlines and pay TV.

5G accounted for 3.3% of all mobile lines, or 8.2mn, in service. The service launched in the 3.5GHz band in July last year.

Meanwhile, fiber accounted for 71.2% of the country’s fixed broadband connections, with internet service providers in the lead.

MOBILE

Frontrunner Telefônica Brasil (Vivo) retained its lead, accounting for 39% of Brazil’s 251mn mobile lines in March. Claro followed with 33%, TIM 24.6%, Algar 1.8% and smaller players accounted for 1.6%. Vivo, Claro and Algar expanded their base, while TIM saw a minor decrease.

With 521,000 net subscribers, the mobile market’s subscriber base slightly grew over February.

In a trend reversal, this increase was driven by prepaid lines, while the number of postpaid lines fell 0.26%. Overall, postpaid accounted for 55.8% and prepaid for 44.2% of all lines.

4G accounted for 78.6% of lines, up from 78.3%, followed by 3G (9.1%) and 2G (9%).

Of the entire 5G base of 8.2mn accesses (up by nearly 1mn in March), 38.6% were via Claro, followed by Telefônica (37.8%). TIM had 23.6%, and was the one whose 5G base grew the most, with over 402,000 new accesses.

FIXED BROADBAND

Fixed broadband gained some 200,000 net subscribers, reaching 45.7mn.

Fiber-to-the-home remains the main expansion engine, adding some 400,000 accesses in the period, whereas the number of other technologies fell. Since March 2022, the number of fiber broadband accesses grew by some 4.9mn.

Coaxial cable made up 19.4% of March’s total, followed by metal cable (4.8%) radio (3.9%) and satellite (0.7%).

Small internet service providers (ISPs) and non-national providers had 36.7% of fixed broadband connections and 42.8% of fiber broadband.

That group excludes ISPs and telcos with an individual market share of more than 1%, such as EB Fibra (Alloha, 4.4% of the fiber broadband total), Brisanet (3.5%), Claro (3.0%), Desktop (2.9%), Algar (2.4%), Vero (2.3%), Unifique (1.9%), AmericaNet (1.9%), TIM (1.8%) and Triple Play (1.5%).

Telefônica Brasil (Vivo) and Oi dominate the fiber broadband market, with 17.4% and 13.2% of the total, respectively, according to Anatel. Both recorded drops in market share again, however.

Meanwhile, Claro led the overall fixed broadband market, with 21.4% of all connections, followed by Telefônica Brasil (14.2%) and Oi (11%).

Claro also holds 98.5% of Brazil’s coaxial cable base. 

The company is migrating its base to fiber and plans to end 2023 with 11.1mn homes passed with fiber (not necessarily clients), up from 7.8mn in 2022.

PAY TV AND FIXED TELEPHONY

Pay TV continues to lose accesses and saw its base fall to 13.4mn, from 13.6mn in February.

Satellite technology accounted for 56.5% of total accesses, ahead of coaxial cable (33.7%) and fiber (9.8%). Of these types of technology, only the fiber share grew.

Claro remained at the forefront with 43.8% of all subscriptions, up from 43.6% in February. Next came Vrio's Sky (28.7%, down from 28.8%), Oi (17.7%, down from 17.8%) and Telefônica (6.6%, down from 6.5%). 

Sky, which last year announced it was entering the fiber segment through partnerships with neutral players, appears with 4,000 fiber broadband accesses in March, doubling its base over February.

Finally, fixed telephony subscriptions reached 26.6mn, down from 26.8mn. 

Of these, 52.3% were provided by authorized operators and 47.7% by concession-holders.

Claro retained a 30% market share and Oi 28.6%. Telefônica had 26%, up from 25.9%, Algar Telecom 4.8%, down from 4.9%, and TIM 2.7% (flat).