Latin America Mobile Penetration Reaches 80%

Mobile penetration in Latin America and the Caribbean was approximately 80 percent in early 2009, well above the world average, which was about 58 percent, according to a new report from BuddeComm, an independent global telecommunications research and consultancy company.

The report found that with 458 million people owning a mobile phone in early 2009, Latin America and the Caribbean together hold approximately 12 percent of the world’s 3.97 billion mobile subscribers. Several countries, including Argentina, Jamaica, Uruguay, and Venezuela, have passed the 100 percent penetration threshold.

The region is becoming fertile soil for 3G W-CDMA services, following substantial increases in coverage and in subscriber numbers during 2008, the research firm noted. In early 2009, there were about 5 million 3G subscribers throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

There are vast differences in mobile development throughout the region. Apart from some first-world Caribbean island nations, the highest mobile penetration rates in early 2009 could be found in Jamaica (115 percent), Argentina (110 percent), Uruguay (109 percent), and Venezuela (101 percent). By contrast, penetration was much lower in Bolivia (48 percent), Costa Rica (48 percent), and Nicaragua (52 percent). Cuba, the country with the region’s lowest mobile penetration, stagnated at 2.9 percent. Penetration in Haiti, the second lowest country, shot up from a 4.8 percent at end-2005 to 41 percent at end-2008 thanks to the launch of low-priced GSM services by Caribbean mobile giant Digicel, which entered the Haitian market in May 2006.