Brazil 10-Months Mobile Phone Client Levels Up 15.6 Million -Anatel
SAO PAULO -(Dow Jones)- Brazilian mobile phone companies added 15.6 million customers in the first ten months of 2005, bringing the total subscriber base to 81.24 million consumers, telecommunications regulator Anatel said Thursday.
The market has grown 23.83% from the beginning of the year, Anatel said. Furthermore, subscriber numbers were up 17.62% compared with the first ten months of 2004, according to the data.
In October alone, mobile phone operators added 1.24 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 terms of handset numbers, behind China, the U.S., Japan and Russia.
Prepaid plans continued to dominate sales, accounting for 80.95% of the total market in October, while contract customers accounted for the remainder.
Anatel also said that Vivo, a joint venture of Spain's Telefonica Moviles and Portugal Telecom, maintained its leadership in market share, with 35.63% in October, down from 36% in September. Vivo is the only company that uses CDMA technology in Brazil.
Vivo's main competitors are GSM operators. The local unit of Telecom Italia maintained its second place, with 23.07% market share. Claro, the local unit of Mexico's America Movil, followed with 21.77% of the market.
Oi, the mobile operator of Telemar, is in the fourth place with a market share of 11.46%
-By Rogerio Jelmayer, Dow Jones Newswires; (55 11) 3145-1480; brazil@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires "
Posted to the site on 17th November 2005
