250 Million Mobile Phones now in Brazil

Brazil will pass an important economic milestone this month and one which says significant things about its society and economy. Easier and more widespread communications are becoming an increasing feature of national life. This is a fact which has important implications for such important aspects as Investing in Brazil and the growing awareness among ordinary people of important national initiatives designed to improve life.
Among the spread of these is the growing availability of health and welfare schemes plus of course social housing provision, a vital aspect in this country which still has a huge deficit.

An important background to all this is the strong and rapid growth in mobile phone (called ‘cell phone’ in the US) usage in the South American giant. Apparently the total number of lines for the devices will exceed a quarter of a Billion (250 million) for the first time this month. That’s the equivalent of well over one each, on average, for every one of the nation’s inhabitants, man, woman or child.

The total figure has been growing steadily at over one per cent per month and is expected to continue at this rate for some time.

There are regional variations of course. Brasilia, Sao Paolo and Rio for instance are above the average of 126 per one hundred inhabitants.

At the other end of the scale, the State of Maranhão remains the only one where the total falls below an average of one per person.

The growing figures have featured in the latest report from ANATEL (the well-known acronym for Brazil’s National Telecommunications Agency).

The market share of service providers is interesting. Vivo has an almost 30% share of business with TIM a close second at 26.6%. These are followed by Claro (nearly 25%) and Hi with 18.6%. Apart from these ‘big four’ providers there are a number of tiny ‘minnows’ bringing up the rear with less than one per cent each.