Mobile Telephony in November
- TIM maintained its leadership in prepaid market share by presenting losses (-586 thousand) similar to those of Claro (-587 thousand). Vivo (-687 thousand) and Oi (-1.0 million) presented the highest losses;
- The competition should be decided in December, month of reference for the payment of the annual inspection fee (FISTEL) paid by active cell phone. The difference between the two operators reached 181 thousand prepaid accesses;
- Claro was the leader in net postpaid additions without M2M (272 thousand accesses), followed by Oi (150 thousand), Vivo (121 thousand) and TIM (72thousand);
- Brazil ended October with 128.8 million 4G mobile accesses, 56.6 million 3G, 24.9 million 2G and 19.1 million M2M terminals.
Oi
Oi has entered into an agreement with Pharol (former controllers of Portugal Telecom) to end disputes between the two companies. Due to Pharol's commitment to support the judicial recovery plan, Oi will:
- Pay 25 million euros to Pharol (to be used in the capital increase of Oi);
- Deliver 33.8 million Oi's shares that are in its treasury;
- Assume costs with legal guarantees related to legal proceedings of Pharol in Portugal.
Oi would have contracted the BofA Merrill Lynch bank to structure the sale of assets (towers and data centers) of the company. (Reuters)
Oi's ON shares increased by 1.4% in the week and the PNs by 2.8%.
IoT
BNDES completed the stage of framing IoT pilot project plans and selected the following projects in the following environments:
- Rural (4): CPqD, Embrapa, FITEC and PUV-Rio;
- Cities (5) CPqD, Inatel, FITEC, Instituto Atlântico and LSI-TEC;
- Health (6): Cesar, HFCFMUSP, LSI-TEC, PUC-Rio, RNP and UFRGS
Teleco participates as an evaluator of FITEC's smart cities pilot project.
The projects will now be analyzed by the BNDES operational teams to be submitted to the approval of the BNDES Board.
CES in Las Vegas
Consumer Electronic Show (CES) took place this week in Las Vegas and was attended by more than 180 thousand people. The main highlights were:
- 5G was a great theme, although 5G smartphones were not yet available to be released at this event. Verizon and T-Mobile complained about AT&T's use of the "5G E" logo (5G "evolution") in the status bar of smartphones connected to its 4.5G network;
- The exhibition had car models and autonomous buses, allowing to check the advances in this segment;
- LG's OLED TV, capable of being rolled up and stored like a big screen on a piece of furniture;
- The world's first integrated universal quantum computing system designed for IBM scientific and commercial use;
- Hulu announced net additions of 8 million subscribers in 2018, reaching a total of more than 25 million subscribers in its video on demand (SVOD) and live TV services. It is still a long way behind Netflix (57 million subscribers in the US), but it is already close to the main pay TV providers in the US. Hulu was established as a joint venture of Disney, Fox, Comcast and AT&T.
Anatel
- Anatel suspended the effectiveness of article 16 of the mobile service quality regulation, which deals with the call completion indicator in up to 67% of cases during peak periods (SMP4). The difficulty of meeting this indicator, that is influenced by the consumer's willingness to answer calls, has long been discussed;
- Anatel and UnB signed a Decentralized Implementation Term (TED) with the objective of elaborating an in-depth study of the impacts of the implementation of a more responsive regulatory model. Good initiative. Brazil needs to move towards a responsive and consumer-oriented model of regulation.
Other Highlights
- The three major Telecom companies listed on the Bovespa lost market value in 2018. Telefónica Brasil ended the year with R$ 75.4 billion (-3.5%), TIM participations with R$ 28.7 billion (-10.6%) and Oi with R$ 2.9 billion (-1.5%);
- The construction of EllaLink, a submarine cable that will link Brazil to Europe and is expected to be operational by 2020, began. Telebrás was one of the shareholders of the project, but switched its share for capacity in the cable;
- Vivo already uses the frequency of 700 MHz to meet with 4G to all municipalities in the interior of the state of São Paulo. Vivo uses 700 MHz in 1,200 municipalities in Brazil, including all capitals;
- Vivo started to commercially operate its fiber network (FTTH) in the cities of Jaboticabal and Votuporanga;
- America Net has signed a partnership agreement with the City of São Paulo to explore the Free WiFi service in the city. The company will deploy 619 WiFi points and will be compensated by the advertising displayed on the devices of the users that connect to this open network;
- The Ford Motor Company has confirmed that by 2022 all of its vehicles will leave the factory with 3GPP's C-V2X technology that enables communication between vehicles. The pattern chosen is different from the DSRC that had been adopted by other US carriers;
- Samsung said it will show a decline in operating profit and 4Q18 revenue due to lower sales in China. Reuters reported that the year-on-year decline will be 12% in operating profit and 5% in revenue. Apple had already announced a drop in its revenue claiming the same reason.
Number Portability
- 6.7 million phone numbers were ported in Brazil in 2018, 15.7% more than in 2017;
- The growth occurred in the mobile telephony (+ 20.6%) totaling 5.3 million ported numbers in 2018. With the growth of the postpaid, the mobile users start to value the maintenance of the telephone number when switching carriers;
- The number of ported landline numbers remained stable at 1.4 million in 2018.
Fixed Telephony
- Brazil lost 141 thousand fixed telephones in Nov / 18. Oi (-96 thousand accesses) and Vivo (-67 thousand) presented losses, while Claro (+10 thousand) and TIM (21 thousand showed gains.
Oi
- Oi's Net Operating Cash Generation was negative by R$ 435 million in October/18, with the final balance of the Financial Cash totaling R$ 4,379 million at the end of the month;
- Investments reached the level of R$ 582 million in October/18, the highest value since the beginning of the judicial recovery process;
- Oi extended from January 4th to 9th the term for the payment of the value of the new common shares to the subscribers exercising their preemptive rights;
- The president of the Brazilian Superior Court of Justice suspended the injunction that prevented Oi from participating in bids until the submission of negative tax certificates. With the decision, Oi may participate in bids with the government;
- Oi's ON shares increased by 12.8% in the week and the PNs by 14.3%.
Apple and Huawei
- Apple's stock fell sharply after the company revised its revenue forecast of US$ 89 billion to $ 93 billion for the first fiscal quarter of 2019, which ended in December, to US$ 84 billion;
- Apple has pointed to falling sales in China as the cause for the drop in projections. The market, however, estimates that this downward trend in revenue should remain, as its customers are taking longer to switch handsets;
- Some old models of the iPhone were also banned in Germany due to a court decision in the case about the dispute over whether Apple infringed Qualcomm's patents. This discussion is also present in other countries;
- Huawei said it sold more than 200 million smartphones in 2018 and increased its total revenue by 21% to US$ 108.5 billion.
Fiber in North America in 2018 (Fiber Broadband Association and RVA)
- In 2018, fixed broadband accesses in fiber (FTTH) exceeded those of xDSL technology becoming the second most used technology in the domestic internet in North America, behind only the cable modem;
- There are 23.8 million accesses in fiber, 18.6 million in the United States;
- Fiber is at the door of 60 million households (Home passed) in North America, with 41 million in the United States..
Other Highlights
- Anatel published an act establishing the establishment of six Traffic Exchange Points (PTTs) in the cities of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Porto Alegre, Curitiba, Brasília and Fortaleza by the groups with Significant Market Power (SMP);
- Provisional Measure 870, published by the new president, maintained the National Authority for the Protection of Personal Data to the Presidency of the Republic, and extended from February 20th to August 20th the deadline for the entry into force of the new law.
Coming Soon
- Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in January 8-11 in Las Vegas. 5G might be one of the key themes although 5G smartphones aren't available for the event yet.
