Mexico’s telecom revenue expected to reach US$28.8 billion in 2010
Isabelle Paradis
September 2010
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According to the information released by HOT TELECOM (www.hottelecom.com) in its latest report “Mexico Telecom country profile”, the Mexico’s telecom industry has registered significant growth over the last five years, with telecom revenue increasing by an average annual rate of 9.7% to US$26.7 billion at the end of 2009. Most of the increase was fuelled by Mexico’s economic stability, alliances between suppliers, price reductions, introduction of new services and network coverage expansion.

There might be a slow in growth in 2010, but it is expected to continue expanding at a healthy pace. The telecom sector grew 12.9% year-on-year during the first quarter of 2010, which shows that this industry had an upturn over the same period of 2009, when the growth rate was 11.8%. Despite a significant slowdown in the growth of its mobile market, the potential for Mexico’s telecom sector is considered to be second only to Brazil.

In the first quarter 2010, the most dynamic sectors were the incoming International Long Distance traffic and TV. The TV sector registered a 78.9% surge in the number of subscribers, making it the fastest growing segment in the industry at the moment.

The fixed segment fell 5.4% during the first quarter of 2010 due to the continued user migration to mobile, and the main operator cancelling 88,000 lines. By the end of March 2010, the total amount of fixed lines in México stood at 19.3 million, representation a density of 17.8 lines for each 100 habitants. The next 5 years should see stagnation in the fixed line sector, with a forecasted average growth rate of 0.8%, ending 2014 with 20.1 million fixed subscribers. “Most of the growth should come from new operators in the cable sector, as well as fixed-wireless expansion in rural areas” HOT TELECOM’s President Isabelle Paradis said.

Throughout 2009, Mexico’s mobile market continued to suffer from the effects of the global recession, coupled with the swine flu outbreak from April 2009. The growth of subscriber number reached 7.3% in 2009, compared with an average growth of over 17.1% from 2005 to 2009.

Mobile growth started to slow in 2008 and this tendency should continue over the next 5 years. The number of mobile customers is therefore forecasted to reach 107.6 million at the end of 2014, representing a penetration of 93.9% and an average growth rate of 5.2% over the next 5 years.

Despite Mexico’s noteworthy average growth rate of 26.7% in its number of Internet subscribers over the last 5 years, its Internet sector remains greatly under-developed, with an Internet subscriber penetration rate as low as 9.5% and 10.3 million subscribers at the end of 2009. Mexico is in 9th position out of 22 Latin American countries in terms of Internet user penetration, behind Costa Rica, Peru, Argentina, Chile and Brazil. Mexico’s Internet user penetration stood at 25% in 2009 (with 28.4 million users).

Find out more about the Mexico fixed, mobile and Internet markets in HOT TELECOM’s new 40-page Mexico country profile: http://www.hottelecom.com/mexico-copr.html