Guyana - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Guyana - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Guyana’s telecom sector starts reaping the benefits of offshore oil discovery.Guyana’s first cargo of crude oil was sold in 2020, following its discovery off the Caribbean coast in 2015. Initial estimates project the resource could almost double the size of the country’s economy to $13 billion annually. It is hoped that Guyana can avoid the institutional problems such as corruption and political conflict that are often the outcomes of sudden oil wealth, and that its discovery will also lead to a major boost in consumer spending power.

The telecom sector is certainly in some need of a shot in the arm, with fixed-line teledensity and penetration for mobile and broadband services at the low end of the scale for Latin American countries. That is typically a reflection of a country’s GDP, so a major injection of revenue into the broader economy is certain to have positive flow-on effects in telecom markets.

That appears to be evident already, based on the recent financial performance of the country’s telcos. With Guyana’s GDP increasing a whopping 16% in 2020 (in spite of the pandemic sweeping the globe), the country also saw healthy growth in the number of mobile (5.6%), mobile broadband (6%), and fixed broadband subscribers (10%). The recent market liberalisation, along with the prospect of additional mobile spectrum allocations, should help propel Guyana from the bottom tier to at least the middle tier in terms of telecom maturity.