Andean, Central America markets drive Sites LatAm deployments

Telecoms tower company Sites LatAm built 398 new sites in the second quarter, with a further 215 being in “advanced stages of construction” as demand heats up mostly in parts of the Andean market and in Central America.

In Brazil, the group's largest market in revenues and tower count, the loss of contracts related to network overlaps following the acquisition of Oi Mobile by existing telcos continued to affect local operations, according to Sites LatAm’s latest quarterly report. 

At end-June, Mexico City-based Sites reported a portfolio of 35,778 towers, an increase of 1,538 compared with the same time 2023.

The portfolio was distributed across 16 Latin American countries, with Brazil accounting for 11,487 of the total. 

Next came Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia (Andean region unit) with 9,384; Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama (Central America) with 7,950; Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay (AUP) 5,443; and Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic (Caribbean) with 1,514.

“Peru continued to demonstrate an outstanding performance, with the completion of 129 new towers, followed by Brazil with 82 new towers, Colombia with 60, while El Salvador delivered 36 new towers and Guatemala contributed with 20. The acceleration of the construction pace during the second quarter of the year stands out when compared to the same period of the previous year,” the company wrote.

Central America in particular demonstrated steady growth, which Sites said was largely attributed to the development of the telecommunications industry in the region. 

Between June 2023 and June 2024, the company added 369 sites in markets such as El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

CANCELLATIONS

While revenues expanded in most of the operations, Brazil, as expected, continued to experience the effects of contract cancellations following the acquisition of Oi. 

From April to June, 71 individual site agreements were canceled in the country following the rearrangement of networks after Oi’s buyout. Overall, Sites reported 78 individual contract losses in Q2 for its operations.

“However, thanks to our commercial efforts, we successfully added 456 new individual site agreements and equivalents during the quarter, effectively neutralizing the loss," the company said.

Overall, tower lease revenues in Brazil contracted 7.8%, compared to the year-earlier quarter, and by 1.4% compared to the prior quarter. 

Despite the drop, Brazil remains Sites’ biggest market, accounting for 33.1% of total tower lease revenues, while Central America contributed 24.2%, the Andean region 20.2%, AUP accounted for 17.2%, and the Caribbean contributed the remaining 5.3%.

Total revenues were 3.67bn Mexican pesos (US$200mn) in Q2, up 7.4% year-over-year, with 61.9% derived from tower lease revenues.