Mexico - Mobile Infrastructure, Broadband, Operators - Statistics and Analyses

Mexico - Mobile Infrastructure, Broadband, Operators - Statistics and Analyses

The Mexican mobile market is undergoing considerable changes in the wake of efforts to curb the market dominance of Telcel, the entry of AT&T following its acquisition of Nextel Mexico and Iusacell, and the greater competitive role being played by Telefónica. Telcel still accounts for about 68% of the market by subscribers, though it is in the process of selling assets to reduce its share to below 50% in line with government legislation passed in late 2013. The regulator has also endeavoured to encourage competition since 2010, partly through issuing additional spectrum which encourages the entry of new players. The MVNO sector is slowly making gains, but still accounts for only about 1% of the market

Despite efforts to encouraged greater competition in the market, only AT&T Mexico and Telcel were eligible to bid for AWS licences at auction in February 2016. These concessions, which expire in late 2030, will improve the ability of these operators to offer mobile data services nationally, and extend mobile broadband services into rural areas.

This report provides an overview of Mexico's mobile market, including a range statistical data as well as subscriber forecasts to 2021.

Key developments:

América Móvil secures an additional 60MHz of spectrum in the 2.5GHz band from Grupo MVS, Telcel sells assets in eastern and northern areas; Telcel and AT&T Mexico secure AWS spectrum licences at auction; Telesites set up to manage América Móvil's domestic tower business; Supermarket chain Grupo Comercial Chedraui signs MVNO deal with Movistar; Movistar to invest MXN3 billion to expand LTE to 300 cities by 2018; payments processor PROSA teams up with Gemalto to provide m-payment services; government reduces investment in state-owned shared mobile network from $10 billion to $7 billion; Virgin Mobile Latin America increases market share to 0.8%; regulator reassigns 2.5GHz spectrum for LTE services; Banorte launches MiFon mobile banking service; América Móvil develops m-payment platform with banks; operators sign up to data roaming transparency scheme; report update includes the regulator's market data updates to December 2015, telcos' financial and operating data to Q3 2016, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report:

Telcel (América Móvil), AT&T Mexico (Iusacell, Nextel Mexico), Movistar (Telefónica), Televisa, Globalstar, Unefón, Virgin Mobile, Weex.