InfoCom Says in Argentina Broadband Growing Most Through 2015

Stuttgart, Germany, September 18, 2010 --(PR.com)-- Argentina’s telecommunications service industry was valued at ARS 29.4bn (€5.6bn) in 2009 as compared to ARS 25.3bn (€5.4bn) in 2008. Broadband grew by 22.4% YoY in 2009, followed by mobile telephony (17.5%), and fixed telephony (12.3%) — resulting to a total service revenue increase of 16.5% YoY in 2009 (21.1% in 2008). From 2010 to 2015, the Argentinean telecoms revenue is expected to grow at an annual average rate of about 4%, primarily driven by a 6% annual average growth rate in broadband services. However, unlike the declining broadband ARPU in other Latin American countries such as Brazil and Mexico, broadband ARPU in Argentina is seen to increase at an annual average growth rate of 3%.

Broadband revenue increased to ARS 3.2bn (€621.7mn) in 2009, a growth of 22.4% YoY as compared to 25.6% YoY in 2008. With a penetration rate of 9%, the broadband market served 3.5mn subscribers in 2009, 73% of which were subscribed to XDSL while the rest were held by cable modem (26%) and fibre optic (<1%). The same shares are expected to remain relatively constant in the next five years with DSL to remain the dominant technology. Other technologies, for instance fibre, is still very far behind in 2010 despite a foreseen annual average growth rate of 25%, it will still represent a penetration rate of only 0.1% by 2015.

Meanwhile, mobile telephony service revenues grew to ARS 18bn (€3.4bn), representing 61% of the Argentinean market in 2009. As compared to the previous years, however, the mobile market is shrinking considerably and the trend is expected to continue in the next coming years until the year 2015, when the Argentine mobile sector will be virtually stagnant. Towards the year 2015, mobile subscriber base is growing only marginally as the Argentine market reaches saturation level, with the share pre/post-paid virtually unchanged. In terms of usage, non-voice revenues represented 32% of the mobile telephony market growing by 30% YoY in 2009. From 2010 to 2015, it is expected that non-voice will continue to scrape revenues from voice and grow at an annual average rate of 9%, generating 44% of the total mobile revenues in 2015.

Contrary to other markets, fixed telephony in Argentina still gains subscribers, though marginally, from 9mn in 2009 to 9.1 expected by the end of 2010. Thanks to broadband and TV service bundling, which pushes the ARPU on the fixed networks — a trend, which will set forward for the coming years — the fixed line market is expected to reach its peak at the end of 2010. TASA and Telecom Argentina dominated the market with shares of 50.7% and 48% of the fixed telephony subscriber base in 2009, respectively. In terms of revenue, however, the former generated higher traffic than the latter. As a result, 2009 ended with TASA representing 63% of the market as compared to 60% in 2008, leaving only 37% revenue share to Telecom Argentina along with others.

About this contribution: InfoCom has just released 2010 evaluations and 2015 updated market shares for a number of countries. New figures and data are available in Teleseeq, InfoCom’s interactive dataroom, available online. Teleseeq is One system comprised of the entire telecommunications and related markets with data available for a huge number of services, with split a large number of indicators, by region, country and carrier, for 85 countries and 10 regions.

About InfoCom: InfoCom is a market research and consultancy company with over 20 years experience providing strategic analyses and planning assistance to stakeholders in the telecommunications, IT and multimedia industries. InfoCom’s independent and fact-based analyses highlight trends and opportunities, supporting decision makers to understand market dynamics in order to improve their competitive advantage.

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