Frost & Sullivan: Smartphone Sales Fuel Growth in Latin American Wireless Market

Frost & Sullivan: Smartphone Sales FuelFrost & Sullivan: Smartphone Sales Fuel Growth in Latin American Wireless Market PR Newswire SAO PAULO, Nov. 21, 2013 Carriers scramble to address the growing popularity of data and prepare for fixed-mobile convergence and multi-play offers Smartphone sales have boosted Latin American mobile market revenues in 2012, although mobile broadband penetration is still limited due to high prices and low service quality. Now, carriers focus on expanding 3G and 4G network coverage and increasing data revenues in order to offset losses in voice revenues due to mobile termination rate (MTR) cuts. New analysis from Frost & Sullivan (http://www.wireless.frost.com), Latin American Mobile Services Markets Outlook II, 2012, finds that the market earned revenues of $81.03 billion in 2012 and estimates this to reach $110.30 billion in 2018 at a compound annual growth rate of 5.3 percent. The study covers Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela. Despite a mobile penetration rate of over 100 percent, the mobile services market in Latin America still holds tremendous promise, with growing demand for machine-to-machine and broadband services. In fact, mobile broadband is likely to become a strong alternative to fixed broadband, especially in remote regions.