Colombia’s telecoms market: The state of play

Colombia, Latin America’s third largest telecoms market in terms of revenues and number of players, ended June with more than 105mn internet, mobile and landline accesses.

Highlights in the first half were mobile internet, fueled by the rise of 5G, and fiber-based fixed broadband, according to the country’s ICT ministry (Mintic).

Auctioned in December and activated in February, the 5G technology is nearing 3mn accesses. 

Of all the four telcos awarded 5G spectrum in last year's auction, Claro is the one with the fastest network expansion pace, with around 90% of the 5G antenna deployments through June.

As previously reported, the ICT industry generated revenues of 27.1tn pesos (US$6.5bn) in 2023, up 3.11%. 

Internet, fixed and mobile services accounted for 61.8% of last year’s revenues.

BNamericas takes a look at the industry’s main segments and breaks down the state of the competitive race.

FIXED INTERNET: FIBER, STARLINK ON THE RISE

On the fixed front, Colombia closed the first half with 8.98mn internet accesses, down from 9mn in March and flat over June 2023. 

The average download speed for fixed internet services was 239.9Mbps in the second quarter, an increase of more than 75Mbps from a year earlier, according to Mintic.

Cable remained the leading technology, with 53%, or 4.82mn accesses. Yet fiber is on the rise and reached 3.57mn at end-June, seeing the addition of 500,000 accesses in H1.

From a geographic perspective, Cundinamarca, Antioquia, Santander and Bogotá were the most connected departments, with 11.6mn, 10.5mn, 7.7mn and 5.1mn fixed accesses, respectively.

Four players rule the market, with a combined 77% share of the accesses in place: Claro Colombia (Comcel), Une Epm, Movistar, and ETB. 

Claro had 3.36mn at end-June, keeping a comfortable lead over Movistar and Une, with 1.56mn and 1.51mn accesses, respectively. Bogotá-focused ETB followed with 613,226 subscribers. 

BNamericas projects that Movistar will take the second place from Une by the end of the year.

Official statistics also show the rapid rise of Starlink in Colombia, similar to what has happened in other Latin American countries since its launch. 

SpaceX’s satellite internet product had over 42,000 Colombian subscribers at end-June, placing it as the 11th largest provider in the country and ahead of established satellite players such as Hughes.

MOBILE: 5G MAKES ITS WAY UP

Four months into service, 5G hit 2.70mn accesses among prepaid and postpaid connections at end-June. 

It is still a very small base – 1.29% of mobile internet’s total - but growing at a pace of around 675,000 net additions per month. 

The 4G technology rules with 86.7% of the total, while 3G and 2G represented 10.1% and 1.8%, respectively.

In the second quarter, 5G saw growth of 116% compared to the previous quarter, while 4G, 3G and 2G had variations of -1.3%, -7.9 and -13.6%, respectively.

The total number of mobile internet accesses in Colombia reached 47.5mn at end-June, nearly 6.1mn more than a year earlier, with the pace of growth slowing in the second quarter.

Claro ruled supreme with 26.4mn accesses, followed by Movistar (8.57mn), Tigo (7.99mn) and WOM (3.25mn).

Next came the MVNOs: Virgin, Móvil Éxito, ETB, Flash Móvil and Suma Móvil.

Of the four leading players, Claro, Tigo and WOM expanded their base over June 2023, with Claro adding around 3mn accesses. Movistar, in turn, saw a drop of some 200,000 accesses.

FIXED TELEPHONY

The number of fixed telephony lines decreased to 6.90mn at the end of H1, with a decline of 674,000 from a year earlier.

The market leader was Claro with 3.4mn lines, followed by Une Epm (1.4mn), Movistar (1.3mn) and ETB (600,000).