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The Top Operators in Caribbean & LatAm by Subscriber Growth
Between them, the ten fastest growing operators in Latin America and the Caribbean added a total of over 52m new connections over the past year, or around two thirds of the regionÃ's 78m total. Quarter on quarter, the bias towards the industry leaders was even more pronounced, with 17.55m of the 19.0m or so new connections happening at the top end of the market. The quarter is somewhat atypical, due to the dismemberment of Telemig, which has boosted the numbers for both Vivo and TNL, but this is a region with an unusual concentration of power.
Vivo naturally heads the list with 6.11m new connections in the quarter. This compares with only 10.19m for the year as a whole. Excluding Telemig, the increase would have been just 2.2m in the quarter, 6.29m for the year. Telecom Americas and TIM both bettered the annual number, with gains of 6.86m and 6.34m respectively but not, of course, the quarterly. TNL, which acquired the other part of Telemig, is second on a quarterly basis after Vivo, with 2.97m new connections just over half of which were organic. It grew by 6.67m on the yearÃ's view and stands to acquire a further 5m+ customers when its merger with Brasil Telecom is completed.
America Movil companies take three of the next four places, with Telecom Americas in Brazil comfortably beating its sister companies in Mexico and Colombia, with a gain of 1.93m against 1.31m and 1.07m, respectively. TIM Brasil splits the two to take fifth place, with 1.28m net additions. Telefonica supplies three of the four remaining places, with its subsidiaries in Mexico (+0.86m) Peru (+0.62m) and Colombia (+0.60m). They take seventh, ninth and tenth, while CANTV is eighth, with 0.79m additions.
On a yearÃ's view, after Vivo come Telecom Americas, Telcel Mexico (+6.74m), TNL and TIM, Telefonica Mexico (+3.8m), Comcel (3.59m), TEM Peru (+3.03m), CTI Argentina (+2.64m) and finally, CANTV (+2.27m). A further ten companies all added more than one million new connections over the year, suggesting that the regionÃ's market is in good shape, at least as far as the absolute numbers are concerned.
Posted to the site on 25th September 2008
This article was extracted from The Mobile World Briefing, the weekly newsletter from The Mobile World.
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