LatAM’s Cellular/PCS Subscribers To Pass 150 Million By 2006.

According to the Yankee Group’s upcoming Report series regarding the forecasts for Latin America 2001 cellular/PCS subscribers, Latin America’s wireless mobile markets continued their remarkable growth trend over the course of the last year, reaching a regional average growth rate of 58.6% during 2000. Wireless penetration increased from a regional average of 10% at the end of 1999 to 15.6% by the end of 2000.

“Following such impressive growth rates in the past years, the Yankee Group expects that growth will begin to slow down in this sector. Our total cellular/PCS subscriber forecast will reach an aggregate 2000-2006 compound annual growth rate of 17.9% for the entire region, and total wireless subscribers will more than double from 60 million at year-end 2000 to 162 million at the end of 2006,” said Cristiane Mahler of the Yankee Group’s Wireless/Mobile Latin America practice.

“In such a capital-intensive industry, scalability and critical mass are paramount for wireless operators to maintain profitability in increasingly competitive environments. As such, there is a major push by regional players to consolidate their regional positions with nation- and region-wide expansions, as well as to streamline operations. This is illustrated through Telefonica’s persistent attempts to gain a nationwide footprint in Mexico’s wireless market and Telecom Italia Mobile’s (TIM’s) pursuit to consolidate nationwide coverage in Brazil and Venezuela,” said Mahler.

Operators across the region are currently making important decisions with respect to 2.5 and 3G network deployments. In the fourth quarter of 2000, following NTT DoCoMo’s investment in U.S. operator AT&T Wireless, the American powerhouse announced a contract to deploy a GSM/GPRS network alongside its TDMA infrastructure that will enable the rollout of advanced mobile data services to its customers. Following this lead, several TDMA operators have announced contracts to do the same. CDMA vendors expect that 1xRTT infrastructure will be available by the mid-2001, with commercial deployments soon after. “Not surprisingly, competition–especially the need to maintain high-end business subscribers–will be the major driver behind the forthcoming deployment of next-generation networks in Latin America,” said Mahler.