Venezuela - Mobile Infrastructure, Broadband, Operators - Statistics and Analyses

Synopsis

Mobile penetration in Venezuela is below the average for South America, while growth in the sector has been set back by the ongoing economic recession. The number of mobile subscribers fell 4.7% in 2015 and by a further 5.7% in the year to September 2016. This decline is in line with similar falls in the number of fixed-line subscriptions as customers scale back their spending on telecom services. Nevertheless, there has been some growth in mobile data traffic, spurred by the popularity of social networks, the prevalence of smartphones and continuing investments from operators in LTE infrastructure. In early 2017 Movilnet finally launched its own LTE services following several delays caused by its inability to purchase equipment from foreign vendors.

Three major players operate in the Venezuelan mobile market: Movilnet, the mobile subsidiary of state-owned CANTV, Movistar, the Venezuelan unit of Spain’s Telefónica, and Digitel, a locally owned private company. In terms of revenue, the mobile sector accounts for about 60% of overall telecom sector revenue, compared to 7% for internet services and 14% for subscription TV services.

This report provides an overview of Venezuela’s mobile market, a profile of all mobile operators and key market statistics and analyses. It also contains mobile subscriber forecasts to 2022.

Key developments:

Movilnet sets up 280 LTE base stations as of June 2017; Telefónica sees dramatic write-down on revenue following currency devaluation; regulator raises Bs.F.4.6 billion in multi-spectrum auction; mobile data traffic grows 21% in the third quarter of 2016, year-on-year; MNOs set up shared-access base stations to serve remote areas; Digitel reports having 100,000 active customers on its LTE network; Movistar switches off its CDMA mobile and fixed-wireless voice and data network; Movilnet announces plan to close its CDMA infrastructure; report includes the regulator’s market data to September 2016, operator data to Q2 2017, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Movilnet, Movistar, Digitel, MovilMax, Tesacom.

Table of Contents

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