Penetration of mobile telephony in Chile is expected to increase to 80% in 2006 and to 90% by 2010, compared to 73% at the end of 2005, Peter Bayer, general manager for the Chilean unit of Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, told BNamericas.
"[The increasing penetration] is directly related to the high GDP per capita, and because of that we will be launching several of our products first or exclusively in Chile," Bayer said.
At the end of 2005, Chilean mobile operators saw 95% of their revenues coming from voice services. According to Bayer, 25% of total revenues should represent data services by 2010.
"This represents a challenge for all operators, because they will need to increase the capabilities of their networks. They also have the pressure of seeing prices going down, so they need to find solutions to maintain or increase the Arpu," he added.
Bayer sees operators facing the challenge of controlling operational costs and reducing churn. As penetration is so high, it is difficult to capture first time users, so operators must try to maintain their customers and try to get customers from other networks to switch to their own, the executive added.
Citing statistics from international consultant Pyramid Research, Bayer said the Latin American mobile market is expected to add 125 million new users by 2009 to the 250 million subscribers recorded at the end of 2005. Nokia estimates the regional mobile market to reach up to 300 million users at end-2006.
"The ones that will gain the largest number of users are the smaller markets, such as Bolivia, because of the potential to add new subscribers. And the preferred technology will continue being GSM with all its applications such as Edge and GPRS," he added.
BNamericas.com"
Posted to the site on 21st June 2006
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/17916.php