Research and Markets: Venezuela Telecommunications Report Q4 2011 - Broadband Continues To Grow At an Exceptional Pace, With More Than 120,000 New Broadband Connections in the Country in Q111

DUBLIN--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/ac0e82/venezuela_telecomm) has announced the addition of the "Venezuela Telecommunications Report Q4 2011" report to their offering.

The mobile market in Venezuela continues its decline this quarter. According to Q111 data, there are 28.753mn mobile subscribers in the country, which marks a decrease from Q410. The number of active subscribers totaled 27.192mn, a 2.4% decrease from Q410. These decreases reflect several quarters of subscriber losses for all operators in the market besides Movilnet, which reported marginal growth this quarter. This reflects Movilnet's continued drive to increase penetration among low income segments of the Venezuelan population. In Venezuela, operators have to constantly discount unused SIMs, as users switch to different networks to take advantage of appealing tariffs and promotions. Movistar reports increasing net losses in subscriber numbers.

The mobile penetration rate in Venezuela has reached more than 100%, which means the protracted growth trend is likely to remain. Operators will have to identify new ways to generate revenue besides reliance on organic growth, which explains Movistar's push for more data services, and the resulting increase in ARPU this quarter, despite the inflationary pressures pushing down the value of Movistar revenues.

Although there is little data available, BMI believes Digitel is also continuing to target high-end subscribers. BMI believes future revenues for Digitel and Movistar are likely to continue growing as a result, but is worried that by focusing so strongly on low-income consumers, Movilnet is likely to miss out on the high revenue segment of the population and such a strategy is unlikely to sustain revenue growth.

The fixed-line market grew this quarter, but BMI don't expect this trend to continue indefinitely. Like other Latin American markets, fixed-line telephony is being replaced with mobile telephony. BMI therefore expect to see some quarters of negative growth in the fixed-line market this quarter.

Companies Mentioned:

• Compaa Annima de Telfonos de Venezuela
• Telefnica Mviles Venezuela
• Corporacin Digitel

For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/ac0e82/venezuela_telecomm