Nicaragua’s telecoms market: The state-of-play

Driven mainly by mobile connections, the telecoms market in Nicaragua continues to expand at a moderate pace.

With around 7mn inhabitants, Nicaragua is a predominantly prepaid mobile market and still has low penetration of fixed broadband access in homes, according to figures just released for Q1 by regulator Telcor.

Furthermore, fiber still accounts for only a small number of accesses to the country's fixed internet services, with the total national network standing at 44,700km as of end-March.

After two consecutive years of expansion of the fiber optic network, the growth has lost some momentum.

From April 2021 to March 2022, the country saw more than 9,000km of fiber deployed. Another 7,900km was installed between April 2022 and March 2023, but in the 12-month period from April 2023, only 1,100km was added.

Below, BNamericas takes a more detailed look at the state of the country’s telecoms market.

MOBILE

Nicaragua ended Q1 with 7.34mn mobile lines in service. That represents penetration of 109%, with roughly 120,000 new lines added in 12 months. 

Of the country’s total customer base, 93% are prepaid accesses and 4.85mn have mobile internet, that is, 3G or 4G connections. Nicaragua is yet to activate 5G services.

In the 12-month period to March 31, some 300,000 mobile internet accesses were added.

In Nicaragua, the leading mobile operators are Claro, with about 50% of the market, and Tigo with 45%. Cootel is some way behind the leaders with a 4% share.

A new bill submitted to congress earlier this year, aimed at modernizing telecoms, enables the launch of mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) to spur competition.

These can be individuals or legal entities authorized by Telcor to provide services without the need to operate network infrastructure or have spectrum assigned.

FIXED SERVICES AND PAY-TV

On the fixed services front, around 388,000 homes in Nicaragua had pay-TV at the end of March, which was 100,000 adds over the 12-month period.

The number of fixed internet users rose by around 5,000 in the period, reaching 376,000.

In fixed telephony, total subscribers were 237,036 in March, up by some 2,700 from end-March 2023.

Telcor does not provide details of the type of service or means of access.

The main fiber networks in the country include, in addition to Tigo, Claro and Cootel, the providers Enatrel, Ufinet, Yota, Alfanumérica, IBW and Ideay.

State-run power transmission company Enatrel appears in an interactive map on the Telcor website as having the most extensive fiber network in the country, including submarine links.

Enatrel recently secured authorization to connect infrastructure to the Central American transmission network.

The package comprises an increase of transformation capacity of the Acahualinca, Catarina, León I and Los Brasiles substations.

Enatrel filed the connection request with power interconnection commission CRIE in February.