The state of play in Colombia's telecoms market

Colombia registered 8.91mn fixed internet subscribers last year, a reduction of some 2,300 over in 2022, according to the latest report from the ICT ministry (Mintic).

National average download speed was 202Mbps.

Cable modem technology continues to lead with 4.8mn connections, followed by fiber with 3.3mn accesses and xDSL copper with 396,000, while other technologies added up to 406,000 accesses.

Fiber optics was the only technology that grew from the third to the fourth quarter in 2023, by 2.8%.

Claro (Comcel) operated 3.34mn fixed internet accesses last year, UNE EPM 1.60mn, Movistar 1.47mn and ETB 650,000.

UNE EPM reported revenues of 406bn pesos (US$104mn), Claro 396bn pesos, Movistar 263bn pesos and ETB 149bn pesos.

MOBILE INTERNET

Mobile internet accesses grew by almost 5mn to 45mn, with a penetration rate of 86.5%.

The most used mobile internet technology was 4G with 40.4mn accesses, followed by 3G with 4.2mn and 2G with 400,000.

According to Mintic, 100% of municipalities are covered by 3G and 2G and 99.8% by 4G.

Claro, which has come under regulatory scrutiny due to its dominant position, operated 23.7mn mobile internet accesses, Movistar 8.8mn, Tigo 7.9mn and WOM 3.3mn.

Claro is also the main operator in terms of revenue, reporting 1.4tn pesos, followed by Tigo with 464bn pesos, Movistar with 387bn pesos and WOM with 144bn pesos.

WOM has declared bankruptcy in Colombia.

FIXED AND MOBILE TELEPHONY

Mobile telephony reached 87.4mn lines, 6.6mn more than the previous year. Of this total, 65.5mn lines were prepaid and 21.8mn postpaid.

Colombia closed December with 7.28mn fixed telephone lines, a decrease of 270,000.

The segment is led by Comcel with 3.4mn accesses, followed by UNE EPM with 1.5mn, Movistar with 1.4mn and ETB with 700,000.