Broadband pushes telecoms revenue growth in Brazil

Overall, fixed internet access ranks just behind mobile telephony, which accounted for 41.2% of the sector’s gross revenue last year, or R$4.12 of every R$10 earned. This information is part of a report prepared by the telecommunications operators’ union, Conexis Brasil Digital.

According to the union, the sector’s gross revenue—adjusted by Brazil’s official inflation index, IPCA—grew by 2.7% last year compared to 2023, reaching R$318.8 billion. This growth was driven primarily by fixed broadband, but also by the strong performance of mobile telephony (with a +4% real growth) and the industry (equipment manufacturers, with +4.8%).

“What drove [this result] the most was fixed broadband, in terms of revenue. It had a real growth of 6.1%,” said Marcos Ferrari, the president of Conexis.

The mobile telephony segment, in turn, benefited from the continued expansion of 5G, Mr. Ferrari said. “We saw significant growth in the number of 5G terminals, in smartphones. We had about 20 million customers at the end of 2023 and reached 40 million by the end of 2024.”

In the same annual comparison, the number of cities with 5G coverage jumped to 812 from 352. Additionally, the total number of antennas compatible with the technology more than doubled during this period, rising to 37,000 from 18,400.

“The higher offering pushes up the demand. The more cities with 5G technology, the faster people adopt it,” Mr. Ferrari said.

Despite this, the mobile segment’s revenue has struggled to grow when examining the figures over the past five years, after adjusting for inflation. Brazil ended last year with 263.4 million active mobile phone lines, an increase of 29.3 million accesses since the end of 2020. However, the gross revenue generated by the segment in 2024 (R$131.5 billion) was lower than that recorded in 2020 (R$133.7 billion, adjusted for the IPCA).

Conversely, fixed broadband has been growing both in real gross revenue and the number of users. The total number of fixed connections increased by 43.2%, reaching 52 million, between the end of 2020 and the same period in 2024. In the same timeframe, the gross revenue rose by 29.3% in real terms, reaching R$96.7 billion.

This positive performance led to fixed broadband accounting for slightly more than 30% of the sector’s revenue last year, an increase of nearly seven percentage points compared to 2020. In contrast, the share of mobile telephony in the telecommunications revenue pie shrank, falling from 42.1% to 41.2% over the past five years.

Last year alone, the number of broadband connections via fiber optics grew by 13.5%, driven primarily by the expansion of this technology in the Northeast region (+15.7%).

The service is expected to advance further in 2025, driven by fiber optic expansion. “Fiber is not only used for fixed broadband. It’s expanding across the country to handle and transmit all the data from 5G,” Mr. Ferrari said. Fiber is also the gateway for operators to offer entertainment, security (self-monitoring), and home automation services to subscribers, among other offerings.

By April, there were 52.7 million fixed broadband accesses in the country, according to the National Telecommunications Agency (ANATEL), up 6% year over year.