2009 Latin American Telecom Market Forecasts

Telecoms services have become an increasingly essential item not only for businesses but also for residential consumers in Latin America. Therefore, demand should not collapse in 2009 despite the recession. Telecom revenues should continue to grow in most countries, driven by mobile telephony and broadband, but growth rates will be quite small compared with previous years.

The services worst affected by the economic slowdown are likely to be those that provide entertainment, such as pay TV, digital media, and non-corporate mobile data services. Also, equipment renewal will suffer, because although corporate and residential users are not going to stop using their cell phones and computers, they will wait for the economic crisis to lift before they spend money on upgrades.

The fixed-line market is likely to remain in its present stagnant condition. In some of the major economies, mobile telephony operators may need to seek additional revenues from SMS and low-cost value added services rather than from new subscriptions, the market being close to saturation.

Broadband development may require governmental and regulatory efforts, particularly with a view to public wellbeing such as e-health, e-education, e-government, and other social services. Universalisation projects, however, could be paralysed by fund shortages, unless they are included in the governments’ anti-crisis measures.

Forecast mobile subscribers – higher growth scenario in Brazil – 2008; 2013; 2018

(Source: BuddeComm, forecasts)

Data in this report is the latest available at the time of preparation and may not be for the current year.

The following notes provide some background to our scenario forecasting methodology:

·         This report includes what we term scenario forecasts. By describing long-range scenarios we identify a band within which we expect market growth to occur. The associated text describes what we see as the most likely growth trend within this band.

·         The projections shown in the tables in this report are based on our own historical information, as well as on telecommunication sector statistics from official and non-official, national and international sources. We assume a possible deviation of 15-20% around this data.

·         All statistics for GDP, revenue, etc are shown in US$, in order to maintain consistency within and between markets. At the same time we acknowledge that this can introduce some irregularities.