Chile: Mobile data usage grew 33% nationwide during 2022

This is a machine translation of Entel's press release

The past year was marked by the gradual “return to normality”, with face-to-face classes and work, in addition to the return to massive festivals without capacity and the end of the mask.

Regarding technology, 2022 stood out for the deployment of the 5G network, where Entel reached 100% of its first stage before the first year and managed to be present in all regions and in 270 communes and with more than one million customers. enabled to use this new technology.

What has not changed is the trend of mobile phone users across the country in terms of increasing use of their cell phones and devices that traffic data.

A new analysis carried out by Entel of the consumption behavior of its customers showed, as has been the trend for several years, that during 2022 the use of mobile data, whether for work, entertainment or education, grew by 33% over Nacional level. Among the regions with the highest growth, comparing December 2021 with December 2022, the three of the Norte Grande stand out; Tarapacá, Antofagasta and Arica and Parinacota, with strong increases of 78%, 72% and 68% respectively.

“For Entel, 2022 was a year of a lot of work and a very important one in terms of connectivity, since we strengthened our mobile network in thousands of locations, especially those that are farthest from urban centers and that require greater digital connectivity, such as This is the case of Puerto Williams, where we delivered the southernmost 5G network in the world last November. We are the leaders in 5G connections in Chile and the rapid deployment and investment we have made has also allowed us to significantly strengthen the 4G infrastructure. This is why mobile data traffic continues to rise, because we have given people more and better connectivity throughout the national territory," said Entel's manager of regulation and corporate affairs, Manuel Araya.

Traffic peaks and main applications

The weekend of November 12 and 13 was particular and very busy in Santiago. In the middle of spring, Saturday night it rained heavily with hail and a thunderstorm that surprised everyone in the capital. Almost at midnight, moreover, in the O'Higgins Region, there was a strong 6.2 magnitude earthquake that scared the inhabitants and some began to evacuate. In this context, Sunday, November 13, was the peak of mobile data traffic of the year. That day, in addition, Club Deportivo Magallanes won the Copa Chile and the Primavera Sound festival closed, with Travis Scott and Björk as main artists.

For its part, the peak of voice traffic was on March 7, when the international news announced that Russia was making a ceasefire after a full week of attacks and that a humanitarian corridor was being negotiated so that the people of Ukraine could leave. of the invaded places.

On the other hand, regarding the use of applications, Entel's analysis showed that 80% of the total traffic is concentrated in only six apps: Instagram (20%), YouTube (16%), Facebook (14%), Netflix (10%), %), and TikTok (10%), plus browser searches accounted for 10% of total traffic. In this way, social networks and streaming continue to dominate the consumption and use of user data.

This is also reinforced by looking at the type of applications that grew the most. Those of social networks with 24%, those of streaming with 22% and, due to the greater displacement that there was in a year without quarantines, transport apps increased by 21%.