OSIPTEL: 88.4% of Peruvian households have a smartphone

This is a machine translation of the Osiptel press release originally published in Spanish.

Smartphones have become a priority good and their presence in the Peruvian market was consolidated during the pandemic, to the point that 88.4% of households have a smartphone, according to the recent Residential Services Survey of Telecommunications (ERESTEL), carried out by the Supervisory Organism of Private Investment in Telecommunications (OSIPTEL).

According to the study, the penetration of smartphones among Peruvian families went from 66.3% in 2016 to 88.4% in 2021, which is a jump of more than 22 percentage points in just five years.

The rate of smartphone ownership in households grew in all areas, standing out in rural areas, where it rose from 39.9% in 2016 to 70.3% in 2021. In Metropolitan Lima, smartphone ownership grew by more than 13 percentage points in the last five years, going from 81.2% in 2016 to 94.6% in 2021. Meanwhile, in the so-called Urban Remainder it reached 90.9% of households.

"The pandemic generated a change in consumption habits and the smartphone category was not left out, with a notable increase in all areas due to the variety of offers and plans offered by the operating companies," said the executive president of the OSIPTEL, Rafael Muente Schwarz.

By socioeconomic variable

This latest edition of ERESTEL, applied to a total of 15,493 households distributed in the urban and rural areas of the country, between October 20 and December 13, 2021, revealed that the growth in smartphone ownership was greater in the D/E sector, going from 32.8% in 2016 to 62% in 2021, a jump of almost 30 percentage points. Meanwhile, the presence of smartphones in sectors A/B and C reached 90.6% and 80.2% of households, respectively.

By age groups, a considerable increase was observed in people aged 12 to 17, going from 37.8% in 2016 to 52.1% in 2021. Another group where the presence of smartphones was consolidated was in people aged 51 moreover, reaching 51.2%, while the possession of smartphones among women almost reached 70% at the end of 2021.

More connected homes

Regarding the coexistence of mobile devices in the home, the study showed that by 2021, 82.2% of Peruvian households have at least one mobile device to connect to the internet, that is, four out of five Peruvian households have a smartphone, laptop or tablet. A considerable jump, considering that five years ago, only 69.2% of Peruvian households had one of these devices.

According to ERESTEL, at the end of 2021, 12.7% of households had three mobile devices, 35.7% had two and 33.8% had one, which confirms the central role played by these devices in keeping us connected in amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most popular technological equipment

Despite being the fastest growing technological device in the last five years, the smartphone could not snatch first place in preferences from the television, which has a presence in 90% of Peruvian homes. However, it fell more than 3 percentage points compared to the figure registered in 2016, when 93.8% of households said they had a television at home.

The pandemic also brought a significant increase in the ownership of laptops and tablets, with 49.4% and 17.3%, respectively; as well as the marked decrease in the ownership of sound equipment (60.1%) and DVD and Blue Ray players (14.6%), whose best period seems to have been left behind.

The data produced by ERESTEL acquire relevance because it is the only public and freely available survey dedicated exclusively to the access and use of public telecommunications services in the country, which allows generating a real and detailed vision of the sector that contributes to guaranteeing the service quality and user empowerment.

You can access the full study by entering the following link: https://sociedadtelecom.pe/2022/07/12/encuesta-residencial-de-servicios-de-telecomunicaciones-erestel-2021/