Brazil Mobile Phone Subscribers Up 21.8% Jan-Sep

SAO PAULO -(Dow Jones)- Brazilian mobile phone companies added 14.3 million customers in the first nine months of the year, bringing the total subscriber base to 79.9 million consumers, telecommunications regulator Anatel said Tuesday.

The market has grown 21.8% from the beginning of the year, Anatel said. Furthermore, subscriber numbers were up 37.5% compared with the first nine months of 2004, according to the data.

In September, mobile phone operators added 1.04 million handsets, Anatel said.

Brazil's mobile phone market has been extremely competitive, with operators in a mad dash to sign up customers, making it one of the fastest-growing markets in the world. Currently, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest mobile phone market in number of handsets, behind China, the U.S., Japan and Russia.

Prepaid plans continued to dominate sales, accounting for 81.1% of the total market in September, while contract customers accounted for the remainder.

According to Anatel, Vivo, a joint venture of Spain's Telefonica Moviles SA (TEM) and Portugal Telecom (PT), maintained its leadership in market share, with 36% in September. That was down from 36.5% in August. Vivo is the only company that uses CDMA technology in Brazil.

Vivo's main competitors are GSM operators. The local unit of Telecom Italia SpA (TIT.MI) maintained its second place, with 22.94% market share. Claro, the local unit of Mexico's America Movil SA (AMX), followed with 21.75% of the market.

-By Rogerio Jelmayer, Dow Jones Newswires; (55 11) 3145-1480; brazil@dowjones.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires "

Posted to the site on 18th October 2005