While Brazil’s information and communications technology (ICT) market consolidates becoming the world’s 4th largest―behind the U.S., China and Japan―total spending by ICT businesses in the country is expected to reach U.S.$175 billion this year, according to the IDC. This is a predicted growth of 9.2% compared to 2013, both higher than Latin America’s total growth (8.2%) and global growth (4.5%).
Brazilian ICT investment is driven by the growth of smart connected devices (desktops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones), pushed by the 67% increase in the cloud public market as well as the Internet of things and the use of social tools to improve business. Smart connected devices will reach 71 million this year (there were 57 million devices in 2013).
Speaking at a press conference in São Paulo, IDC executives said that the third platform (mobile computing, cloud services, big data and analytics, and social networking) will boost carrier’s sales of value added services. IDC forcasts a fixed data growth of 9.7%, while mobile data is expected to increase 21% this year; fixed voice should decrease 2.4% and mobile voice is projected to rise 11.4%.
Also, IDC predicts that Brazil will have 3 million LTE lines by the end of this year and an installed base of around 8 million LTE-ready smartphones. Smartphone sales in Brazil have surpassed feature phone sales already and are expected to represent 71% of the total base in 2014. Of the 71 million smart connected devices estimated by IDC, smartphones and tablets should account for 58 million units.
Other IDC predictions for the Brazilian ICT market include: network improvements, including corporate networks, to address data growth demand; as well as growth in data centers, public cloud and enterprise mobility. The big data analytics market is set to start maturing, pushed by retail, telco and finance verticals.
Latin American mobile data: While global mobile data traffic grew 81%, year over year, to 1.5 exabytes per month, the highest growth rates were experienced by the Middle East and Africa (107%) and Latin America (105%). The closely-watched Cisco Visual Networking Index report showed that IP traffic in Latin America will reach 7.4 exabytes per month by 2017 at a CAGR of 17%. The region is expected to allocate their remaining IPv4 addresses between 2014 and 2017.
Inspite of the growth, the region lags behind in device mix conversion. About 55% of Latin America’s installed base will have converted to smart devices and connections by 2018―far from the 93% in North America and 83% in Western Europe. Cisco estimates that by 2018 there will be 86,222,002 4G connections, representing 9.1% of total accesses.
More news from Latin America:
- The Colombian Ministry of Information Technology and Communications launched an investigation into Movistar, Tigo and ETB to determine if the companies are following LTE regulations, in particular, whether they are adhering to the rules that obliged them to provide national roaming service to inbound operators such as DirecTV and Avantel.
- The bidding terms for the Brazil’s 700 MHz frequency band auction are expected to be open for public consultation in April.
- Goldman, Patria and at least six other private-equity firms are backing five local tower builders as phone operators such as Tim Participacoes SA (TIMP3) and Telefónica Brasil SA (VIVT4) shift from constructing their own towers to contracting the work.
- Telefónica has signed with LINE to bring its application exclusively to Telefónica subscribers in key Telefónica Firefox OS markets, including Venezuela, Peru, Spain, Colombia, Uruguay, Brazil and Mexico. Additional markets are expected to be announced soon.
- Panama’s wireless market closed 2013 with U.S.$548.8 million in revenue, according to preliminary statistics from the government.
- Millicom announced that its subsidiary in Guatemala, Comcel, has successfully borrowed U.S.$800 million through the issuance of a new U.S. dollar denominated bond.
- Telefónica Digital plans to deploy the Funambol personal cloud solution across Telefónica’s operating units in Europe and Latin America. The service is now live in Brazil.
- Latin America corporate IT connectivity needs are expected to double by 2016, according to an IDC survey sponsored by Ciena.
