Report: Fibre Optics leads broadband market in LatAm
September 23, 2021
At Q2 2021, the Latin American broadband market exceeded the 100 million connections mark, reports Dataxis. Fibre reached a 39 per cent market share and, for the first time, became the option with the greatest diffusion rate in the region.
The biggest group behind this technology deployment was Telefónica with a market share of 16.4 per cent, followed by América Móvil with 15.2 per cent. These figures show a relatively low dominance of traditional, large telco operators. The universe of competitors in fibre is still very fragmented: in Latin America, dozens of small and mid-range players compete with each other, encouraged by the low cost of deployment and the lack of competitors with ultrabroadband options in suburban areas.
Fibre also grows as a substitute for other technological options, initially to replace DSL. As of 2020, Dataxis also notes that a strong migration movement revolving around major cable systems started to emerge, even though these actors have traditionally been very reluctant to leave cable modems. By 2026, Dataxis predicts that fibre will concentrate 83.2 million accesses in Latin America; 63 per cent of the total forecasted broadband connections. While the total broadband market will jump by 31.9 per cent, fibre’s growth will be 3.5 times faster, reaching 113.2 per cent.
It is becoming clear that broadband is rising as a standalone product that, eventually, will be paired with third parties OTT services. Although fibre is not directly competing with pay-TV, it has a non-negligible impact on its consumption, as Internet providers offer fibre bundled with IPTV, OTT and often Android TV. TV bundled with fibre already started to replace traditional bundles such as DSL-DTH and Cable-Cable Modem and encourages the rise of a new competition, threatening existing market leaders.