In the first quarter of this year, the postpaid segment, that is, those lines that are subscribed to a telephone plan, managed to exceed pre-pandemic levels after almost two years, reporting 21.1 million lines compared to the 21 million that existed in the same period of 2020.
The arrival of Covid-19 in the country in 2020 caused users to cancel their phone plans due to the fact that they did not need to download data as they were in the home office mode and the decrease in family income due to reduced salaries and the trend of layoffs. In contrast, consumers opted more for making telephone recharges.
“The first quarter of 2022 is the first period in which both postpaid subscriptions exceed the levels seen in the last period before the pandemic (first quarter of 2020) and previously only the prepaid figures had been above the levels of the first quarter. fourth of 2020 ”, indicates the report of the consulting firm Telconomia.
Jesús Romo, director of the Telconomia consultancy, explains that the recovery of postpaid lines is due to the economic reactivation since users have less uncertainty about their income, which allows them to look for accessible telephony plans.
“People are opting for rental plans that seem appropriate to them according to their income, despite the fact that we associate recharges with flexible schemes, but the counterpart is that recharges already have a shorter validity and the plans have the advantage that users already have controlled month by month how much they are going to pay”, comments Romo.
Fernando Esquivel, director of market research at the consulting firm The Ciu, estimates that the positive trend in postpaid lines will continue this year, despite the inflation that is currently taking place in the country, due to the fact that telephone services mobile tend to be below inflation.
As of March this year, there are 130.3 million mobile subscriptions, of which 84% correspond to prepaid and 16% to postpaid.
Telefónica pays more postpaid lines
Since 2019, Telefónica México decided to return its radio spectrum to the State due to the high financial burden that it represented to focus on healing its finances. And while getting rid of the spectrum did not represent a factor in reducing its user base, since the Covid-19 pandemic arrived the company has faced a decrease in market share in the mobile segment, which could be associated with a less commercial dynamism.
The company has gone from having a market share of 21% at the end of 2019 to 18.4% at the end of 2021.
However, despite losing users, especially in the recharge segment, the company has managed to pay more customers in a quarter, even much more than its competitors Telcel and AT&T. However, it is the telecommunications operator that has the least participation in line plans.
In the first quarter of this year, Telefónica reached 1.81 million subscriptions in this modality, which means 17% growth compared to the same period last year.
In the first three months of this year, the company of Spanish origin reported 1.81 million postpaid subscriptions, which means an increase of 17% more than in the same period last year and almost 10% growth compared to the last quarter. of 2021.
Esquivel considers that the increase in Telefónica’s postpaid base is due to its unlimited data plans that allow its customers to use voice services (minutes), messages and data indefinitely and have it in the control mode.
Telcel purges user base
During the first quarter of this year, Telcel had a drop of 39,000 postpaid lines, which means 0.3% less, closing with 14.52 million subscriptions. Carlos Slim’s subsidiary company has registered a downward trend in this segment since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020.
Experts believe that this trend is due to the fact that Telcel focuses on purging its subscriber base to keep only those with the highest consumption, since currently its Average Revenue per User (ARPU), that is, what customers spend on mobile telephony, It is the highest of all telephone companies, being 162 pesos, while AT&T’s is 132 pesos and Telefónica’s is 61 pesos.
One of Telcel’s big bets now that it has launched its 5G is that this new technology will allow it to increase its ARPU to generate more revenue in its mobile segment.
AT&T robustece planes
The company of American origin achieved this quarter 4.81 million subscriptions in its postpaid segment, which represents 1.8% more than the same quarter of the previous year.
For Jesús Romo, the addition of postpaid lines for the company chaired by Mónica Aspe would be associated with the fact that it has opted for plans that give users a discount on their consumption plans, as well as their personalized income through its Ármalo model, where users can generate their plan according to their needs.
