Brazil’s telecoms market: The state of play

Amid fierce competition for fiber broadband clients and as they vie for leadership of the 5G market, Brazilian operators surpassed 344 million telecoms accesses as of May 31, including all types of services, up by roughly 2mn since April and some 7mn higher more than at end-May 2023.

Taking into account broadband, telephony and pay-TV, Telefônica Brasil (Vivo) is the leader in the telecoms market with a 33.2% share of accesses, more than 3mn ahead of Claro (32.1%). The third biggest telco in the market, TIM, is next with an 18.4% share.

May featured some notable highlights, such as in satellite internet, where Starlink surpassed longer-established competitors to become the leader in the segment.

In 5G, echoing the broader telecoms market context, Vivo and Claro were neck-and-neck in the race for the biggest client base.

And in fiber broadband, Oi continues to shed clients as it prepares to sell its customer base, while the gaps between the top four ISPs further narrowed.

BNamericas takes a closer look at the figures.

Also read: ICT Capex 2024 report

MOBILE

In May, Brazil reported more than 260mn mobile telephony accesses, with around 2mn net adds from the end of April.

5G now accounts for 10% of the total, or nearly 30mn connections. Claro leads the way with a 37.2% share, while Vivo is just behind with 37.1%. The difference between the two is fewer than 20,000 accesses.

In one year, nearly 20mn 5G connections were added as clients migrated their 4G smartphones to the new technology when buying a new device.

4G remains the leading technology, accounting for 74.1% of the total base, while 2G and 3G are at 7.7% and 7.5% of the total, respectively.

Looking at all technologies, Vivo had a 38.6% share of the mobile market at end-May, Claro was on 33.9%, TIM 23.7% and Algar Telecom 1.6%. 

With the exception of TIM, which lost 1 percentage point of its market share, all the players' figures were stable compared with end-April.

FIXED BROADBAND

Of the total 49.7mn accesses as of May 31, some 75.5% were in fiber broadband, which added over 3.5mn accesses over the 12 months from end-April 2023.

Coaxial cable was responsible for 17.4% of fixed broadband connections, while 3.5% were via radio, 2.6% via metal cable and 0.9% via satellite.

Fiber and satellites were the only technologies to increase their weight in the total during the month.

Satellite internet services reached a total of 471,200 customers, following the addition of nearly 59,000 subscriptions in the month. 

This growth is being spearheaded by Starlink, which overtook Hughes as the leading provider in this segment.

The SpaceX company accounted for 42.5% of all satellite accesses in service in May, while Hughes had 38.1%. Next is Viasat (5.6%), Brazil’s Telebras (4.4%) and then Claro (4.2%). 

In April, Hughes was the leader of this segment with a 43.7% share, compared with 39.4% for Starlink. 

In fiber, Vivo leads the market with a 17.3% market share, followed by Oi (11.6%).

Small ISPs and other providers without a nationwide footprint had a combined 42.4% share of the fiber broadband market and 38.1% of total fixed broadband.

This group excludes ISPs with a market share of more than 1%, which are: EB Fibra (Alloha, 4.2% of the total in fiber, Claro (4.0%), Vero (3.6%, includes Americanet), Brisanet (3.6%), Desktop (2.8%), Algar (2.2%), Unifique (2.0%), TIM (2.0%), Brasil TecPar (1.7%), Alares (1.6%) and Stiw Sistemas (1.2%), which appears in the list for the first time.

Among the leading ISPs, Brisanet and Desktop had the most additions in the month.

The figures reveal intense competition among the four most established ISPs (excluding Claro), with Alloha and Desktop having a gap of fewer than 300,000 fiber broadband customers.

The chessboard will likely change in the coming months, however, as Vivo is currently in talks to acquire Desktop, while Vero and Brasil Tecpar are rumored to be bidding for Oi’s fiber broadband customer base.

Considering all means of internet access, Claro ended May with a 20.3% share of the fixed broadband market, followed by Telefônica Brasil (Vivo) with 14% and Oi with 9.5%. 

Vivo led in additions of new clients, followed by Claro. Both were driven by fiber activations, whereas disconnection of copper cable continued progressing. 

Oi, which is undergoing a second judicial recovery, lost subscribers again, shedding around 18,000 in May.

FIXED TELEPHONY AND PAY-TV

Fixed telephony ended May with 23.6mn subscribers, down from 23.9mn at end-April.

The customer base includes concession-holders and companies providing the service under the authorization model.

Overall, considering both authorized players and concessionaires, Claro had 30.3% of all accesses in service, followed by Oi (26.6%), Vivo (25.7%), Algar Telecom (4.3%) and TIM (2.8%).

ISPs selling bundles of fiber and landlines were next, with Vero having 2.8%, Alloha 1.2% and Brisanet 1.2%. MVNO-enabler Datora had 1.1%.

Pay-TV subscriptions fell again, sliding to 10.7mn at end-May from 10.9mn a month earlier. 

Satellite technology accounted for 52% of all accesses, followed by coaxial cable (35.6%) and fiber (12.4%). 

Leveraged by the offer of multi-play packages, fiber is the only service showing growth, helping stem the outflow of customers from the pay-tv base.

Market leader Claro had a 47.5% share of the pay-TV market, followed by Sky with 28.7%, Oi with 11.1%, Vivo with 7.6% and others with 4.9%.