Cell Phone Base
- Brazil lost less than 1 million mobile phones in the first ten months of the year and the trend shows the number of mobile phones will stabilize with the growth of M2M accesses. Without M2M losses would be almost 3 million in this period;
- Handset base (without M2M) may continue to shrink in 2020, with the shutdown of the 2nd prepaid chip. In Oct/19, those who had a cell phone had an average of 1.2 chips (SIM cards).
Oi
- Oi signed a deed of simple non-convertible debentures of R$ 2.5 billion. The operation should strengthen the operator's cash which had R$ 2.6 billion in Oct/19;
- Oi's ON shares lost 3.4% in the week and the PN appreciated 0.8%.
IoT
- The world market for IoT platforms is still growing: 2019 ended with 620 suppliers, up from the 450 in 2017;
- But the market is focusing: the top 10 vendors had 58% market share in 2019, compared to 44% in 2016. (IoT Analytics).
Happy holidays and happy new year!!
Oi
- Oi's revenue is falling faster than routine Opex (operating expenses and costs), leading to a decrease in routine EBITDA margin from 26.8% in 3Q18 to 20.3% in 3Q19 (IFRS 15);
- Oi Brasil's net revenue fell 8.8% in this period, while routine Opex fell 0.7% (IFRS 15). The decrease in revenue occurred in all segments: personal mobility (-2.8%), B2B (-8.0%) and residential (-13.5%);
- Oi advanced in the deployment of its FTTH network, reaching 3.6 million homes passed (HPs) at the end of the quarter. But take up rate is still low: 11.4% penetration of connected houses (HCs) over homes passed (HPs);
- Capex reached R$ 2.1 billion in 3Q19, accumulating R$ 5.9 billion in the year;
- Oi B2B will be renamed Oi Soluções and will also integrate services and technologies from numerous partners;
- The company reported net loss of R$ 5.7 billion in 3Q19, impacted by the identification of an impairment of assets of R$ -3.3 billion and a consolidated net financial result of R $ -2.1 billion;
- The company received US$ 33.1 million in extraordinary dividends from Angolan operator Unitel, where it has a 25% stake;
- Rodrigo Abreu, Oi's COO of Oi, has confirmed hiring a financial advisor to evaluate how the mobile business can generate value for shareholders;
- Oi asked the court to extend its judicial recovery process, which was due to be concluded on February 4th, 2020;
- Oi's ON shares appreciated 3.3% in the week and the PN remained stable at R$ 1.25.
Mobile accesses accumulated along the year until Oct/19
- Brazil lost 945 thousand mobile accesses accumulated in the first 10 months of the year;
- Vivo (827 thousand accesses) and Claro (36 thousand) presented positive net adds and TIM (-1,480 thousand) and Oi (-225 thousand) negative;
- Claro (3.1 million) and Vivo (2.1 million) led postpaid growth and made up for prepaid losses.
Fixed accesses accumulated along the year until Oct/19
Net additions accumulated in the first 10 months of the year:
- +1.5 million fixed broadband accesses;
- -1.6 million pay TV susbcribers;
- -3.1 million fixed telephony accesses.
Competitive operators led fixed broadband gowth by holding net adds of 2,172 thousand accesses, followed by Claro (+192 thousand accesses), Vivo (-406 thousand) and Oi (-480 thousand) which presented losses, including in October. Competitive carriers are market share leaders with32%.
5G
Anatel held the “5G Workshop: Telecommunications Industry Vision” where Ericsson, Nokia, Huawei and Qualcomm had the opportunity to present their technical vision about the bidding for 5G frequencies. The following points should be highlighted:
- Initial 5G deployments that do not use the new core cannot be deployed without a 4G network with at least 5 MHz bandwidth;
- Speed differential performance will not be achieved compared with 4G with bands below 80 MHz. This speed is important for this first phase of 5G. In industrial and low latency applications no high speeds are required;
- Smartphones will not offer 50 MHz bands at 3.5 GHz. Only 40 GHz, 60 GHz, 80 GHz and 100 GHz;
- The fragmentation of the 3.5 GHz spectrum in regional blocks increases the complexity of coordination between regions due to the existing interference in TDD (same bandwidth transmission and reception) that is greater than in other generations of technology using FDD.
FCC will allocate US$ 9 billion to deploy 5G networks in US rural areas, US$ 1 billion to networks used for precision agriculture.
Other Highlights
- The injunction allowing the direct sale of Fox's linear channels over the internet was revoked by the court. Anatel's precautionary measure prohibiting this type of sale is again valid;
- Private LTE networks are beginning to advance in Brazil. Following the announcement of Telefonica's network with Vale, it was now the turn of a solution for the electric sector. Neoenergia received experimental authorization from Anatel to operate a private LTE network in 3.5 GHz in the interior of São Paulo. Nokia will provide the equipment;
- 4 million smartphones irregularly entered Brazil in 2019, without collecting any taxes, five times higher than estimated for 2018. The data are from Abinee, which held its traditional holiday lunch last Friday;
- Stay tuned! http://www.agenciatelebrasil.org.br/fiqueantenado is the new page of SindiTelebrasil that gathers content and tips on the installation of mobile antennas, including the rankings of Internet Friendly Cities and Smart Cities Services;
- MCTIC and the MDR (Ministry of Regional Development) installed City Chamber 4.0, also called Smart and Sustainable Cities;
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google's co-founders, have decided to move away from executive positions in the company in an effort to simplify its management structure. Sundar Pichai, might assume the role of CEO.
Coming soon
