Brazil’s Brisanet taps Huawei to supply 5G equipment

Brazilian regional telco Brisanet, one of the new entrants to the country’s mobile market, has tapped Huawei as its 5G supplier.

Brisanet already disbursed 230mn reais (US$45.6mn) in March for a first set of radio base stations (antennas) from the Chinese vendor. 

That figure is the bulk of what the company plans to invest this year as it starts operating in this new line of business, Brisanet reported in its quarterly financials. 

The largest of the non-national fixed broadband providers, Brisanet moved into Brazil’s mobile market following its acquisition of regional spectrum blocks in the 2.3GHz (for 50MHz bandwidth) and 3.5GHz (80MHz) bands last November, giving it coverage in its core region in the northeast, as well as in the center-west.

The ISP previously said it planned to spend 2bn reais on 5G services in 2022-26, with an initial focus on the northeast region.

In a conference call, CEO José Roberto Nogueira said Brisanet aims to activate the first 5G networks this year.

Overall, the group says it will invest a total of around 1bn reais in 2022. 

Brisanet ended the first quarter with 139 cities served, 5.1mn homes passed with fiber (following the addition of 641,000 in the quarter) and 909,000 homes connected, or FTTH customers (up 66,000).

The company predicts that it will end the year with over 1.2mn customers, but pointed out that the situation regarding local and global inflation and supply chain difficulties, “if intensified”, could affect the final figure.

Brisanet also reports having around 23,500km of fiber backbone and over 50,000km of FTTH deployed in Brazil.

The group posted a net profit of 9.5mn reais in Q1, reversing a net loss of 7.2mn reais in the same period of last year. Its net sales grew 32.1% year-on-year to 217mn reais in January-March. 

Total capex, when measured by additions to property, plant and equipment and intangibles, jumped to 499mn reais from 151mn reais in the first quarter of 2021, pushing the firm's net debt up to 628mn reais from 74.6mn reais at end-2021.