Brazil’s telecoms market: The state of play

The highlights of Brazil's telecommunications market at end-April included steady 5G growth, the accelerating expansion of satellite internet, a landmark for Telefônica’s mobile customer base and a new record for fixed broadband supplied via fiber.

Overall, the country ended the month with 342mn accesses, divided between mobile telephony, fixed telephony, fixed broadband and pay-TV, according to regulator Anatel’s statistics. That was a net increase of roughly 5mn in one year.

Of the total customer base, 258mn are in mobile telephony, 49mn fixed broadband, 24.6mn fixed telephony and 11.1mn in pay-TV.

BNamericas takes a look at the evolution of each service and the performance of the main providers.

Also read: ICT Capex 2024 report

FIXED BROADBAND

Of the total 49mn accesses at end-April, 75% were in fiber broadband, which added 3.3mn new customers from the start of May 2023.

That was slower growth than in previous years, but still a rapid expansion nonetheless.

Coaxial cable was responsible for 17.7% of fixed broadband connections, while 3.7% were via radio, 2.7% via metal cable and 0.8% via satellite.

Satellite internet services reached a total of 412,374 customers at end-April, up from around 300,000 a year earlier, boosted mostly by the uptake of Starlink services.

According to data from Anatel, Hughes continues to lead this segment with 43.7% of all satellite accesses, followed by Starlink with 39.4%. Brazil’s Telebras and Claro are well behind with 6.7% and 5.8%, respectively.

Considering all means of access, Claro ended March with a 20.6% share of the fixed broadband market, followed by Telefônica Brasil (Vivo) with 14% and Oi with 9.7%. Vivo led in additions of new clients, followed by Claro. Oi, which is undergoing a second judicial recovery, lost subscribers again.

Small ISPs and other providers without a nationwide footprint had a combined 42.7% share of the fiber broadband market and 37.4% of total fixed broadband.

This group excludes carriers with a share of more than 1%, which are: EB Fibra (Alloha, 4.3% of the total in fiber, Claro (4.0%), Vero (3.6%, includes Americanet), Brisanet (3.6%), Desktop (2.9%), Algar (2.2%), Unifique (2.0%), TIM (2.0%), Brasil TecPar (1.7%), and Alares (1.7%).

Desktop, which is talking to Telefônica about a potential acquisition deal, led growth in the month among the ISPs, with over 11,000 additions.

Among the leaders, Alloha saw a slight loss in subs, while Vero grew. 

The fiber broadband market is led by Vivo and Oi, with 17.5% and 11.9% market shares, respectively.

MOBILE

Brazil grew its mobile base again by over 800,000 accesses in April, with postpaid lines surpassing 151mn, according to Anatel.

The total market base includes IoT and M2M accesses and smartphone lines. 

Overall, the Internet of Things (IoT) segment accounted for 43.5mn accesses, followed by 22.6mn machine-to-machine (M2M) chips and 20.9mn points of service (PoS, payment machines).

Market leader, Vivo had 38.6% of all mobile accesses in service in the country and broke the symbolic threshold of over 100mn subs. No other mobile carrier has ever reached that mark in the local market.

Meanwhile, Claro had 33.9%, TIM 23.8%, Algar Telecom 1.6% and others 2.1%. All four grew in the month.

In 5G, Claro retained the lead, accounting for 37.6% of all accesses in April, while Telefônica Brasil had 36.5% and TIM 25.8%. 

5G grew by nearly 6mn lines from the end of 2023, reaching 25.9mn at April-end. The service now accounts for 10% of the country’s total mobile telephony base.

Despite now being in decline, 4G was used on 74.6% of lines, 2G on 7.8% and 3G on 7.6%, according to Anatel.

FIXED TELEPHONY AND PAY-TV

Fixed telephony ended April with 23.9mn subscribers, down from 24.9mn at end-March, continuing to fall in what seems to be an irreversible downward trend.

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

Overall, considering both authorized players and concessionaires, Claro had 30.1% of all accesses in service, followed by Oi (26.6%), Vivo (25.8%), Algar Telecom (4.3%) and TIM (2.8%).

Pay-TV subscriptions fell to 10.9mn from 11.0mn in the period. Satellite technology accounted for 52.7% of all accesses, followed by coaxial cable (35.6%) and fiber (11.7%).

Market leader Claro had a 47.5% share of the pay-TV market, followed by Sky with 28.9%, Oi with 11.8%, Vivo with 7.6% and others with 4.2%.