In Latin America, 4G Mobile Connections Set for Explosive Growth
4G connections to account for nearly 30% of total mobile connections by 2018
August 21, 2015
Though the total number of mobile connections in Latin America will grow by only 6.8% between 2014 and 2018, according to one researcher, the number of connections that will be on 4G LTE services will be up 1,491.5% during the same period.
Dataxis Intelligence estimated that last year, just 2.0% of mobile connections in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela were 4G LTE. By 2018, that share will reach nearly 30%—translating to a massive increase in the share of mobile users in the region enjoying fast broadband delivery of websites, apps, video and other mobile content.
Dataxis expects a bare plurality of those fast connections in 2018 to come from Brazil, at 32.8% of the total. But Mexico will be close behind, at 29.1%.
The increases in the size of Latin America’s 4G LTE market are predicted to be dramatic, but so far, adoption of the technology across the region has been slow and uneven.
eMarketer estimates that this year, 396.6 million people in Latin America, or 64.7% of the region’s population, will own and use a mobile phone at least monthly. By 2018, those figures will reach 423.3 million and 67.1%, respectively.
