Kirk LaughlinCAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Despite a highly penetrated mobile market, operators in Honduras will see opportunities in increasing data usage along with the expected migration from basic handsets to text-friendly devices and smartphones, according to a new report from Pyramid Research (pyr.com).
Honduras: Smartphone Growth to Boost Flagging Broadband Penetration Rate offers a precise profile of the country’s telecommunications, media and technology sectors based on proprietary data from Pyramid’s research in the market. It provides detailed competitive analysis of both the fixed and mobile sectors, tracks the market shares of technologies and services and monitors the introduction and spread of new technologies.
“Despite recent political problems in Honduras, the telecom market has continued expanding, fueled by advances in mobile penetration and broadband Internet,” says Jose Manuel Mercado, Senior Analyst at Pyramid. “In 2010, the telecom market generated $1.36 billion and will expand at a CAGR of 5.1 percent over the next five years. Pyramid anticipates that the rapid shift from fixed telephony to mobile will continue since the state-owned fixed operator will still struggle to add lines, mobile penetration of the population will expand to 123 percent by 2015 from 108 percent in 2010,” adds Mercado.
Mobile data will more than double its share of total revenue, expanding from $182 million in 2010 to $444 million in 2015; Pyramid expects fixed and mobile broadband to be the main contributors. “Claro offers 1GB of data for $15 per month. Messaging, currently the main source of mobile data revenue, will slow its expansion due to high penetration rates and price wars among operators,” notes Mercado. “In 2010, Claro decided to focus more on bringing more data users and lesson acquiring new customers. Going forward, we expect Claro to target data-intensive markets such as mobile broadband and smartphone users,” he adds.
Most of the data revenue in Honduras comes from messaging. “The lack of a strong 3G base for market leader Tigo and the relatively low sophistication of the market has made other services a small piece of the overall market,” he says. “Mobile broadband has started to gain traction in Honduras, and by the end of 2011, Pyramid anticipates around 218,000 subscriptions. Going forward, connectivity (mobile broadband plus mobile browsing) will represent almost 9 percent of total data revenue,” indicates Mercado.
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