RANKING

The largest companies in the sector TELECOMMUNICATIONS and also conquered the market leaders in sales, according to the annual Best and Biggest Examination 2008 are Telefonica, Hi / Telemar, Vivo, Brazil Telecom, TIM Celular, Embratel, Claro, Hi, TIM -NE and Brazil Telecom Mobile.

CELLULAR MARKET

According to data released by the FCC - the National Telecommunications Agency, in March 2009, the total number of mobile phones in Brazil's 151.9 million units. And in January 2009, 1,307,000 were enabled devices, the second highest number for the month of January of the last 10 years, second only to the same period of 2008. Of the more than 151 million units, 81.59% were prepaid and 18.41% postpaid. Brazil has now 79.79 phones per 100 inhabitants. In January 2008, the rate was 64.50 per 100 inhabitants. The Federal District is the unity of the federation with the highest ratio of mobile phones per inhabitant, mobile 1.37 for each inhabitant. The Rio de Janeiro comes in second with 0.98 per capita. Third, Mato Grosso do Sul, with 0.95.

MARKET ENVIRONMENT

 

The expectation of the sector is the creation of the Brazilian supertele resulting from the purchase of Brazil Telecom by Telemar Hi.

To recap, Telemar was born in 1998, resulting from the addition of telephone operators from 16 states and groups controlled by Andrade Gutierrez, GP Investimentos and La Fonte. Ten years later, the company gathers under the brand Hi its operations telephony, internet and entertainment, with 14 million subscribers in fixed telephony, 17 million subscribers in mobile telephony, was the pioneer to adopt the GSM technology in Brazil, has a , 6 million broadband subscribers on the Internet and had revenues of $ 17.6 billion in 2007.

The purchase of Brazil Telecom, for $ 5.8 billion, depends on changes in the General Grant Plan, which provides that the controller can not be owner of two dealerships. If completed, it will supertele revenues of about $ 30 billion, will be present in all Brazilian states, will be responsible for 56% of fixed telephony in the country, 40% of the broadband market and 17.5% of subscribers cell phone. The strategy is to have a strong company to compete with Mexico's Telmex (which controls Claro and Embratel) and Spain's Telefonica, though, even with $ 22.9 billion of market value, the national supertele   will   quarter of the Mexican group and one-eighth the size of Telefonica.

The outlook for the sector's growth in 2009, according to the ITU - International Telecommunication Union, which says that Brazil was one of the few countries where the telecommunications sector continued to grow in the last half of 2008. Despite the worsening global economic crisis, 1/3 of the 4 billion mobile phones in the world today comes from one of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China). And the crisis itself is identified as a growth factor in the industry - since companies tend to reduce business travel, replacing them with phone calls and video conferencing.

As for competitiveness, Brazilian telephony sector - telecommunications and internet services - are among the most expensive in the world, according to a UN study released in Mar/2009. Taking as reference the price of a basic package, the use of cell consumes 7.5% of average income per capita in the country. The wireline consumes 5.9%. As an example, in countries where the phone has the lowest cost to the consumer absorbs 0.1% of income per capita inhabitant - Hong Kong, China, Denmark and Singapore. Even in Argentina, neighboring country, the percentage is 2.5%. A broadband internet, considered by the ITU important tool for economic development, has a high price in Brazil - monthly cost equivalent to 9.6% of income Brazilian per capita (percentage well above countries such as Russia, India and China).

The development potential of the sector is still large - according to the study of the ITU, 2002 to 2007, the number of fixed lines in Brazil fell from 21.7 to 20.5, for each one hundred Brazilians, and the phones more than tripled over the same period, from 19.5 to 63.1. In the Internet sector, the figures are more modest - the percentage of Brazilian households with computers rose from 14.2% to 20.8%, Internet access, which was 10.3% of households, reached 15.4 %. But it is still a modest number when compared to developed countries, 70% of households are connected.

And finally, even with respect to competitiveness, as of March 2009, all subscribers of fixed and mobile telephony can change operator while keeping the same phone number, which helps the consumer to decide who offers the most cost- benefit, without being penalized with the loss of your phone number. This is called portability of fixed and mobile numbers.

At the moment, should not make much difference to the consumer, which in practice is treated similarly by all telcos: suffering with internet accessibility, suffers with the telephone service - waiting, bureaucracy, lack of autonomy in the resolution of problems, etc.. And in point of sale, and two to four hours waiting to be seen, with password.

 

 

Source: Examination Biggest and Best 2008, MSN News, estadao.com.br, Folha de Sao Paulo (ranked price x per capita income, worldwide, in sample 2/3/09, p. B3, Book money).