Latin America and The Caribbean mobile market overview

Latin America and The Caribbean mobile market overview 

Kagan's snapshot of the current state of the region's mobile subscriptions, finance, spectrum and towers 

With over 15 million net additions in total subscribers over the year, Latin America and Caribbean's mobile market reached 677.5 million accesses by the end of 2024. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan's research including Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and Peru; this represents a 2.3% annual growth from 2023 through 2024 in a largely prepaid-led market that is still transitioning to 5G.

Mobile penetration is already high — 126% in 2024 — in a region with over half a billion people. Rather than machine-to-machine (M2M) and internet of things connections, this high mobile penetration remains the result of users with more than one SIM card to circumvent prevalent interconnection rates to have cheaper or free call and text services.

Of the total subscriptions in the main countries reviewed in this report, 61.9% are in Brazil and Mexico combined. These two markets also drove the region with 66.1% of total mobile revenue in 2024. Although total revenue remained largely unchanged, companies are achieving a more stable stream by increasing postpaid subscribers. 

Half of the total postpaid subs in this regional review came from Brazil, while Mexico accounted for only 11.5% of this total, leaving room for more migration to contract plans across the region. For now, Latin America remains very much a prepaid market, and Mexico is the largest one, with 32.3% of the total prepaid subscriptions.

Projections

Kagan estimates subscribers for the total reviewed Latin America mobile market could grow at a compound annual growth rate in the low single digits over the next few years. Notably, we expect the postpaid base to grow, while prepaid remains mostly unchanged. Our model shows mobile revenue growing also at a low single digit CAGR over the next seven years.

Technology

In the leading LatAm markets we reviewed, 4G was the most prominent mobile technology in the region we reviewed, with 288.1 million subscriptions about 44.6% of the total subscriptions in the region.

In the largest markets where 5G is available, the technology has been growing at a steady pace. Brazil finished 2024 with 40 million 5G subscriptions, almost doubling the number from the previous year. Mexico grew by 64% with 16.2 million subs in the period, while Colombia had 8.9 million, and Chile had 7.3 million. These markets together accounted for 72.4 million 5G subscriptions in 2024.

Spectrum

Considering all the sub-6 GHz bands, the Latin America market has about 8,030 MHz worth of spectrum and 11,670 MHz of capacity, including millimeter wave (mmWave) technology. The total from the regional markets results in an implied density of 84,913 subscribers per MHz, excluding mmWave. Including mmWave, the density falls to 58,429 subscribers/MHz.

The most popular 5G spectrum, 3.5 GHz is already available in countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru. 

Tower

Across the entire Latin America and the Caribbean, not just the leading markets, S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan estimates towers and small cells were up almost 2% in 2024 compared to 2023. Over the next decade, we anticipate stronger growth considering the use of higher-frequency spectrum of both 5G and especially 6G mobile standards, as higher frequencies are worse at propagating and therefore provide reduced coverage areas. Small cells and more dense mobile networks will be necessary to help the higher-band spectrum reach the masses, as the region transitions from 4G.

The region had over 250,000 towers in 2024, about 2,433 people per tower on a population basis (an improvement by reducing 1.2% in comparison to the previous year). According to Kagan projections based on industry and regulatory data, the Caribbean had the biggest year-over-year growth rate (4.31%), followed by South America (1.87%). Mexico and Central America combined grew by 1.71%.

From the largest markets and considering the total (traditional and small cells combined) towers, only Brazil had significant growth in the 12 months ending December 2024, up 2.45% in 2024. Mexico grew by 0.07% and Colombia grew by 0.32%.

Traditional and small cells

Traditional towers grew by 1.53% yearly in Latin America and the Caribbean in 2024. The three largest markets all had marginal increase in the period: Brazil grew by 0.71%, while Mexico was flat (0.07%) and Colombia increased by 0.32%. Our estimations of small cells and distributed antenna systems (DAS) implied a 4.84% growth from 2023 to 2024 across the region. While Mexico's small cells grew by the same rate as traditional towers (0.07%), Brazil grew by 12.1%, and Colombia grew by 0.32%.

Kagan estimates a compound annual growth rate in the mid- single-digit percentage range for total towers over the long term. In this scenario, traditional towers would still be the largest base and could grow at a lower rate compared to small cells and DAS.