According to the third quarter report prepared by CIU, both the Mexican economy and the mobile telecommunications market are still struggling with the effects of the pandemic. In the smartphone market, the main challenge is the global shortage in the supply of electronic components that has caused havoc in the sale of mobile equipment.
It is worrying that, according to preliminary results published by Inegi during the third quarter of 2021, an annual growth of 4.6% of GDP is observed, however, with a level of 15.0 percentage points lower than that observed in the previous quarter.
The mobile telecommunications segment in Mexico registered an annual growth of 0.2% during 3Q-2021, mainly impacted by the -14.2% drop in mobile equipment sales. However, the growth in services was 8.3%. This drop in the sale of mobile equipment by part is due to the shortage of electronic components in the market.
According to the CIU study, the total sales of the mobile operators industry was 75,399 million pesos, of which Telcel entered 53,891 million pesos, a figure 0.3% lower in its annual comparison, with a participation of 71.5% of the market income.
In second place, AT&T registered an annual growth of 1.9%, with revenues equivalent to 14,484 million pesos (19.2% of the total market), induced by the 8.8% increase in the services component, attributable to the expansion of its customer base , which offsets the -8.5% contraction in equipment sales.
In third place, Telefónica reduced its revenues -8.7%, by generating 5,963 million pesos, a contribution of 7.9% of the total mobile segment. This is due both to the reduction of -8.4% in the sale of services and of -9.4% in the case of equipment. The operator points out that the reduction in service revenues is due, in large part, to the fact that these have had a downward impact due to the cut in the termination of calls in its network.
Finally, it is estimated that the virtual mobile operators (MVNOs) generated a total revenue of 1,060 million pesos as a whole during 3Q-2021, a figure that represents an annual growth of 133.9%. With this, it increased its market share to 1.4 percent.
In total, 129.8 million lines were counted, 5.4% more in comparison with the same quarter of the previous year and equivalent to a mobile penetration of 102.8% among the total population.
In its distribution by operator, Telcel holds 61.1% of total lines, reaching 79.3 million, followed by Telefónica Movistar with 20.0% market share or 26.0 million accesses, and AT&T with 19.5 million lines, or 15.0%. For its part, the marked dynamism of MVNOs has led them to account for 3.9% of the total as a whole with 5.0 million lines.
Of the total lines, 82.2% correspond to the prepaid subsegment and 17.8% to the postpaid one.
Despite the fact that Mexico’s GDP grew 4.6% in its annual comparison during 3Q-2021, the mobile telecommunications segment only did so by 0.2%, mainly derived from the shortage of components for mobile equipment, which caused a drop in sales of -14.2 percent.
Finally, there was a reduction in Telcel’s revenues of -0.3%, an increase of 1.9% by AT&T, a reduction of -8.7% for Telefónica and an increase of 133.9% for virtual mobile operators. Thus, the revenue share was 71.5%, 19.2%, 7.9% and 1.4%, respectively.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx