Peru: Mobile Market Poised for Strong Growth as Heightened Competition and Network Improvements Spur Demand

Mobile subscriptions in Peru recorded a strong increase of 6.9% in 2015, closing the year at 33.6m. Growth was primarily driven by a more consumer-oriented Entel and new-entrant Bitel, which have implemented aggressive pricing strategies and device subsidies. Over the next five years, mobile subscriptions will grow at a CAGR of 3.3%, reaching 39.5m by year-end 2020, with smaller MNOs and MVNOs, led by Virgin Mobile, as the main growth drivers. Both Movistar and Claro have seen their mobile share decline in 2015 largely as a result of intensified competition, particularly in the prepaid segment. At year-end 2015, Movistar’s and Claro’s respective shares stood at 50.0% and 36.0%, down from 53.5% and 39.8% a year earlier. The decline is largely the result of intensified competition in the prepaid segment. Entel’s mobile subscriber base expanded by close to 80% in 2015, reaching 3.1m subscribers at year-end 2015 or 9.3% share. New entrant Bitel expanded its share of the market to 4.5% at year-end 2015, primarily on the back of attractively priced prepaid plans targeted at the low-value segment. Previously announced for late 2015, the auction of the 700MHz band (APT plan) will take place during H1 2016. ProInversion will seek to auction three blocks (2x15MHz) in this band, raising the prospects of fierce bidding. Claro will push particularly hard to secure spectrum in the upcoming 700MHz band auction, as it failed to do so in the previous 4G auction (2013). The number of broadband lines in Peru reached 1.9m at year-end 2015, for a population penetration rate of 6.2%, a number that lags penetration rates found in neighboring countries Colombia (11.3%) and Ecuador (9.8%). Looking ahead, primarily supported by government-led efforts to expand the national fiber-optic backbone, the number of broadband lines will grow at a CAGR of 8.0% between 2015 and 2020, to reach 2.8m by year-end 2020 and a population penetration of 8.6%. The Peruvian pay-TV market generated $344.3m in service revenue in 2015 and reached 1.7m subscriptions for a household penetration of 27.0%, a rate well below the region’s average of 41.3%. Pay-TV subscriber growth in Peru has long been negatively impacted by high rates of pay-TV piracy. We expect Peruvian pay-TV operators to add about 633,000 subscriptions during 2015-2020, to reach a total of 2.3m subscriptions in 2020 and a penetration rate of 35.7% of households.

Scope

“Peru: Mobile Market Poised for Strong Growth as Heightened Competition and Network Improvements Spur Demand” provides an executive-level overview of the telecommunications market in Peru today, with detailed forecasts of key indicators up to 2020. It delivers deep quantitative and qualitative insight into Peruvian’s telecom market, analyzing key trends, evaluating near-term opportunities and assessing risk factors, based on proprietary data from Pyramid Research’s databases.

It provides in-depth analysis of the following:

Peru in a regional context; a comparative review of market size and trends with that of other countries in the region.

Economic, demographic and political context in Peru.

The regulatory environment and trends; a review of the regulatory setting and agenda for the next 18-24 months as well as relevant developments pertaining to spectrum licensing, national broadband plans, number portability and more.

A demand profile; analysis as well as forecasts and historical figures of service revenue from fixed telephony (including VoIP), broadband, mobile voice and data, and pay-TV markets.

The service evolution; a look at the change in the breakdown of overall revenue by fixed/pay-TV and mobile sectors and by voice, data and video in the current year as well as the end of the forecast period.

The competitive landscape; an examination of key trends in competition and service providers’ performance, revenue market shares and expected moves over the next 18-24 months.

An in-depth sector analysis of fixed telephony and broadband services, mobile voice and data services, and pay-TV services; a quantitative analysis of service adoption trends by technology/platform as well as operator, average revenue per line/subscription and service revenue through the end of the forecast period.

Main opportunities; this section details the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Peru’s telecommunications and pay-TV markets.

Reasons to Buy

Facilitates service providers, mobile operators, tower operators, equipment manufacturers/vendors, investment banks, management consulting companies, industry associations, and regulators, to gain a context of the Peruvian telecom services market, to align business strategies.·      Understand Peru’s telecommunications regulatory framework, and how it will evolve over the next 18-24 months.

Assess Peru’s fixed telephony (including VoIP), broadband, mobile voice and data, and pay-TV market size.

Investigate current and forecast trends in Peru’s fixed telephony (including VoIP), broadband, mobile voice and data, and pay-TV markets.

Gain insight on Peru’s telecom and pay-TV market competitive landscape, examining key trends in competition and service providers’ performance, revenue market shares and expected moves over the next five years.

Identify and assess the near-term opportunities for operators, vendors and investors in Peru’s telecommunications and pay-TV markets.