The state of play in Argentina's telecoms market

Argentina's telecoms services generated 1.53 trillion pesos (US$1.65 billion) in revenues in Q1, compared to 507bn pesos in the same period last year, and 3.02tn pesos in all of 2023.

Inflation in the 12 month-period ending March reached 288%.

Mobile service revenues reached 769bn pesos, and ARPU stood at 4,080 pesos, compared to 1,424 pesos a year ago, according to the latest report from regulator Enacom. (See the full report in the Documents box in the top-right corner of the screen.) 

Income from fixed internet services was 280bn pesos, cable pay TV 191bn pesos, and satellite pay TV 94.4bn pesos.

Enacom reported 11.63mn fixed internet accesses in the quarter, up 3.48%. At the end of 2023, 11.55mn accesses were registered.

Also, 5.99mn cable modem, 4mn fiber optics, 774,475 ADSL, 598,682 wireless and around 11,790 dial-up accesses were recorded.

Of the total accesses, 8.36mn occurred with speeds above 30Mbps, 950,930 reached 6-10Mbps and 866,152 between 1Mbps and 6Mbps.

The household penetration rate was 78.9%.

TELEPHONY AND PAY TV

Around 62.9mn mobile accesses were registered, up 0.23%, for a household penetration of 134%. Prepaid accesses were 54.5mn.

In the quarter, 135 4G base stations were added for a total of 27,617 sites. Enacom does not report 5G deployment figures. The spectrum auction held in 2023 did not involve 5G coverage commitments.

Fixed telephone lines reached 6.91mn, for a household penetration of 46.9%.

Pay TV registered 7.6mn accesses and a penetration of 51.6%. Satellite TV totaled 1.45mn accesses and household penetration of 9.8%.