Honduras' telecom market: The state-of-play

Honduras ended Q1 with 8.15mn telecom accesses, considering fixed telephony, mobile telephony and internet, according to data compiled by BNamericas with statistics from regulator Conatel.

Mobile telephony and internet lost users when compared to the previous quarter, whereas fixed telephony grew.

In the case of internet, there was a drop in both fixed and mobile accesses.

Such a pattern differs from the overall market trend in Latin America, which has seen declines in legacy services such as landlines and pay TV and growth in internet.

Honduran operators reported a combined 1.21bn lempiras (US$49mn) in capex in Q1, up from 1.13bn lempiras a year earlier.

Revenues amounted to 6.19bn lempiras compared to 6.06bn lempiras in 1Q23.

The telecoms sector had a workforce of 33,782 in March, up 39% in one year.

MOBILE

At the end of March, there were 7.71mn mobile lines in Honduras, down 2.7% in the first quarter and compared to 7.98mn at end-March 2023.

Of the total, 88% were prepaid lines and 12% postpaid. The postpaid base continues to grow in the country, albeit very slowly – at the end of March 2023 its share was 10%.

Overall mobile penetration, which corresponds to the number of lines per 100 inhabitants, fell 3.07 percentage points in the quarter to 78%.

The mobile market continues to be dominated by MiIlicom’s Tigo.

At end-March, the telco accounted for 65.8% of the mobile lines followed by Claro with 34% and state company Hondutel (0.05%). 

Three months earlier, Tigo had 64.8% and Claro 35.2% and at end-March 2023 the shares were 65.6% and 34.3%.

INTERNET

The number of fixed internet subscribers fell 2.58% and mobile subscribers by 1.44% in the quarter, reaching 331,084 and 6.83mn.

In March 2023, the figures were 293,516 and 6.94mn, respectively.

Five out of 10 households in Honduras had a fixed internet connection at end-March, a figure considered low compared to other markets in Latin America.

Tigo led the mobile internet market, comprising 3G and 4G accesses, with a 74.3% share while Claro had 25.7%. The figures were flat from the previous quarter.

In the annual comparison Tigo grew by one percentage point and Claro’s share fell by the same amount.

Tigo held 34% of the fixed internet market, followed by Claro with 28.3%. Next came Cable Color with 3.44% and Hondutel with 2.96%. The other 31% was held by smaller operators.

Compared to March 2023, Cable Color lost 8.62 percentage points, Tigo 2.33 and Hondutel 0.37, while Claro grew by 5.64. 

The figures show an expansion also of internet service providers, whose combined share grew by 5.67 percentage points over March 2023.

LANDLINES

Fixed telephony accesses increased 0.81% in the quarter to 447,438, with a penetration rate of 4.57%.

Of the total, 63.2% belonged to Hondutel and 36.7% to resellers, with barely no changes in both the annual and quarterly comparisons.

PLAYERS

A total of 1,294 companies were authorized to operate in Honduras by Conatel as of end-March, including public and private telephony, internet, radio and TV groups.

Of the total, 49.7% correspond to broadcasting permits, 37.8% to public operators and 12.3% to private ones. 

Honduras gained seven private operators and lost 48 public ones since March 2023, the statistics show.