5M Brazilians Use GSM

LONDON -- The GSM Association (GSMA) revealed today that Brazil would reach the milestone of five million GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) mobile phone users by year-end. The forecast comes just sixteen months after the launch of its first GSM network.

GSM is rapidly becoming the preferred network choice of Brazilians from all economic groups, ages and regions, with subscriber base average growth of above 11 percent per month, according to the Agência Nacional de Telecomunicações (Anatel), the Brazilian regulator. Almost 300,000 new customers are choosing GSM each month. Many of these are migrating from other technologies such as CDMA and TDMA.

"The success of GSM in Brazil demonstrates the importance of regulatory stability to attracting significant domestic and international investments into the country," said Rob Conway, CEO of the GSMA. "Brazilians can now benefit from a mobile communications system that enables them to communicate with friends, family and businesses from right across Brazil, Latin America and the rest of the world." In September, GSM represented about 11 percent of the total 40.8 million mobile phones in use in Brazil, and estimates are that it will reach 12.5 percent by year-end. During the month of August, an average of 16,709 new GSM customers were connected per day - or the equivalent of 12 new lines per minute.

"GSM is going from strength to strength in Brazil, as well as across the whole of Latin America," said Marco de Lissicich, chairman of GSM Latin America, the GSMA's regional interest group. "GSM is the world's leading mobile communications system, with more than 930 million customers in over 200 countries today, including every country in Latin America."

GSM Association