The Brazilian regulator, Anatel, has just released December's mobile customer numbers and they show that the growth of October and November has continued, to such an extent that Q4 08 is revealed as the country's best quarter ever. Over the course of the three months, a total of 9.85m new connections were made, taking the national total past 150m.
Yet we should not assume that this is unalloyed good news. The distribution of the 9.85m across the months is instructive and this showed that October, with 4.0m net adds, comfortably bettered December's 3.59m. That has never happened before. Indeed, December only contributed just over 12% of the annual growth number, compared with more than 18% in both 2005 and 2006, more than 20% in 2002, 2004 and 2007 and nearly 30% in 2003. Pessimistic observers of this industry, some of whom have been forecasting a slowdown for the past two or three years, may see this as evidence to support their negative stance, but that, we would suggest, smacks of desperation.
The other interesting aspect of the numbers comes from the trend in market share. Throughout the latter part of 2007, TIM threatened to take Vivo's lead but that challenge faltered and it is TIM that is under pressure today. Anatel's numbers suggest that Vivo has a lead of 6m customers over the second placed operator, which now is not TIM, but America Movil's Claro. This overtook TIM in November and strengthened its grip on second place, adding 3.06m customers in the quarter, against TIM's 1.20m.
TIM's number takes its total up to 36.4m, which is a pretty fair total by any standards, but it cannot be complacent. The soon to be combined TNL/BT grouping added 2.56m subscribers over the same timescale and, on a proforma basis, now has 30m connections. And at the bottom end of the scale, there is a new operator - Unicel do Brasil, backed by Saudi-based HiTs Telecom - which has just launched in Sao Paolo. There is no doubt that competition is on the increase, although whether such an entity can hope to do anything to trouble the four giant players is in some doubt.
Posted to the site on 4th February 2009
Brazil: Quarterly Net Additions
Posted to: www.cellular-news.com/story/35849.php