26/12/2006
2006 Balance
A growth balance of subscribers of the main telecommunication services present the following prominences in 2006:
- The cellular density surpassed 50 cell/100 inhab being added to the cellulars base in 2006 more than 14 million cellulars, even though the cleaning of the base promoted by Vivo in more than 1.8 Million cellulars in June/06.
- Brazil will finish 2006 with more than 100 million cellulars reaching the 5th or 6th position between the countries with more cellulars in the world. In 2006 it was surpassed by India, but must reach the 5th position surpassing Japan in Dec/06 or in the beginning of 2007.
- The quantity of fixed telephony subscribers keeps still with the fixed telephony concessionaires in service in the 10 first months of the year. The responsible for the growth were the authorized. Net Fone through Embratel , VOIP solution using Net network got 135 thousand clients in 6 months.
- Pay TV grew in 2006 and must finish the year with more than 4.5 million subscribers. Even though it was surpassed by Broad Band.
The revenue of the cellular operators increased 14% in the comparison of the 3 first Quarters of 2006 with the same period of 2005. A part of these growth was because of the end of Bill&Keep that increased the revenues but also the costs of interconnection of the operators. Vivo presented negative growth in it Net Income, and can be surpassed by Tim in the last quarter of the year. The Net Income of these operators was a little better in 2006, but the EBITDA Margin continues low ( 17% average in the 3Q06).
The fixed telephony concessionaires in 2006 had negative readjustments in it rates and deacreasing of it subscribers base. The competition in the local telephony it's worse with cellular and VOIP. According to IBGE there are more homes with cellulars than fixed telephones in Brazil. The growth of Income wasn't negative because of the increase of Broad Band's revenue.
The investments of the operators were lesser in 2006 than 2005.
The exportations of cell phones surpassed 2005. Nokia presented reduction in it exportations and Motorola increased. According to Abinee in 2006 will be produced 74 million cellulars, it is more than wich was produced in 2005 (65 million).
Consolidation and Reorganization
The year of 2006 had lots of consolidations and reorganizations of companies, which must continue in 2007. Prominences:
- The possible exit of Telecom Italia of Brazil with the sale of Tim and it participation in the Brasil telecom.
- The growth of the mexican Carlos Slim's Group established by Claro, Embratel, Net and Vivax, that split with Telemar the 2nd position between the bigger telecommunication groups of the country. With the acquisition of Tim , this group would surpass Telefonica/ Vivo reaching the 1st position.
- The process of reorganization of Telemar in which pretended to spray it shares in the stock exchange but had the process blocked by preferential shareholders that didn't agree with the relation of trading proposals with its shares.
- The consolidation of Pay TV with the approval of the joint venture DirecTV with Sky, the acquisiton of Vivax by Net, Abril by Telefonica and Way Brasil by Telemar.
- Finally , between the suppliers , the joint venture of Alcatel with Lucent and is in process Nokia with Siemens in the network's infrastructure.
Important Facts
Important Facts in the telecommunications in 2006:
- The definition of Digital TV japanese standard to the brazilian terrestrial Digital TV and the tests realized by many senders with digital radio.
- The changes of Vivo implanting GSM network, finishing with inactive clients and redoing it prices in the market.
- The licitation of frequencies to Wimax , that had to be postponed to 2007.
- The adjournment, also to 2007, of pulse conversion to minute in the rate of local calls of fixed telephony concessionaires.
You could ask:
- Was the year of 2006 good for telecommunications in Brazil?
- What could you expect from 2007?
- How will be the situation with the current consolidations?
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