GSM Rules Latin America and Caribbean

[Barry]

Based on Informa Telecoms & Media's market projections for the first quarter of 2005, the GSM market share is the largest of the network types present in Latin America and Caribbean region. There are nearly 100 GSM operators with networks deployed in every country of the region serving an estimated 73 million customers.

For March 2005, projected wireless market share for GSM in Latin America and the Caribbean is 39%; followed by TDMA at 35% with 66 million customers; and then CDMA with 24% with 46 million customers. iDEN and analog each represent about 1% market share.

Eva Benguigui, Senior Analyst for Latin America at Informa Telecoms & Media noted that, "Based upon projections from our World Cellular Information Service, GSM subscriber numbers surpassed TDMA numbers to make GSM the leading technology in the Latin America and Caribbean region as of March 2005. The growth of GSM is attributable to many factors including the nearly unanimous selection of GSM as the evolution technology for TDMA operators as well as Greenfield and newly licensed operators in the region."

According to Informa projections, there were 11.5 million GSM additions in the first quarter of 2005 for Latin America and the Caribbean, compared to 3.3 million CDMA additions and a loss of about 300,000 TDMA customers. GSM growth was close to four times more than CDMA growth in the same time period. The shrinking trend in the TDMA customer base was first measured in the region in 4Q 2004.

The GSM evolution to third generation is through EDGE and/or UMTS, both standards for high-speed wireless data services that can deliver a combination of the best cost efficiencies and technology benefits. EDGE is currently deployed by 18 operators in Latin America and the Caribbean.

UMTS is third generation (3G) standard, and both EDGE and UMTS are complementary technologies and many GSM operators will deploy both technologies within their networks. There are 63 UMTS networks commercially deployed in 31 countries of the world today.

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