Spotlight: Brazil's leading mobile services providers

Spain’s Telefónica, through its subsidiary Telefônica Brasil (which operates as Vivo), led the Brazilian mobile market in eight out 11 indicators in 2021, according to telecoms consultancy Teleco.

Vivo ranked first in net revenues at 7.8bn reais (US$1.53bn), mobile ARPU (28.2 reais) and population coverage (97.6%).

Also, for mobile market share (33.1%), postpaid market share (36.9%), prepaid market share (28.8%), M2M market share (37%) and 4G market share (31.4%).

The second largest mobile player, Claro, led in two indicators: net mobile additions (7.4mn) and net revenue growth from services (up 8.1% on the previous year).

For its part, Brazil’s Oi, whose mobile business is being sold to its rivals, was top for postpaid growth (up 3.34mn subscribers).

Oi's final 2021 numbers have not yet been released by the company, although they have already been accounted for by regulator Anatel. Financial results for Q4 and full-2021 will be released by the company on March 29.

Teleco highlights 2021 was a year of strong cellphone growth in Brazil, with net additions of 19.3mn lines, and growth in both postpaid (+15.1mn) and prepaid (+4.2mn).

According to Anatel, as of December Telefônica Brasil accounted for 83.9mn of the country's 253mn mobile accesses, followed by América Móvil’s Claro (70.5mn), Italy’s TIM (52mn) and Oi (42mn).

In 2021, Claro consolidated its second position as it continues to steadily increase market share. Oi also gained market share during the year, while TIM continued to lose participation.

The market share positions are set to remain largely unchanged with the division of Oi Mobile among the three rivals: Vivo will climb up to 38.1%, Claro to 32.3% and TIM to 27.1%, Teleco said.

Telefônica Brasil invested 8.68bn reais in 2021, up 11.5% on the year before and representing 19.7% of sales. The company projects investments of 7.5-8.8bn reais for this year.

América Móvil invested 170bn Mexican pesos (US$8.3bn) in all its operations – specific country figures are not disclosed – and projects US$8bn in capex for 2022.

TIM, in turn, projects investments of 4.8bn reais this year, up from 4.4bn in 2021.