BnamericasPublished: Friday, June 05, 2026

Cable, copper, other infra Mergers & Acquisitions Sensors Satellite broadband Statistics

Brazil recorded around 357 million telecommunications accesses at the end of April, of which 274.5 million were mobile telephony and 56 million were fixed broadband, according to official statistics.

Fiber already accounts for 79.8% of fixed broadband accesses.

In the total market, Claro, of the Mexican América Móvil group, leads with a 19.2% share as it advances in the migration of its copper network to fiber to the home (FTTH). Of the operator’s total broadband base, 71.7% is still made up of coaxial and copper accesses, while 27.5% already use fiber.

In the 12 months to April, Claro’s fiber accesses grew by more than 44%.

While the fixed broadband market as a whole grew just 4.3% in the 12 months to April, with a 0.2% drop compared to March 2026, some companies continue to stand out.

Starlink, for example, is approaching 800 thousand accesses in Brazil, according to official data. The company, however, claims to have reached the milestone of 1 million active subscribers in the country, its second-largest global market.

According to statistics compiled by Anatel, the operator of SpaceX practically doubled its customer base in the 12 months to April, with growth of 99.8% and a total of 744,215 accesses.

In April, the company grew 5.6% – that is, in a single month it advanced more than the fixed broadband market as a whole did in a year. Starlink’s rate of new customers has been around 40 thousand per month.

In total, satellite internet services in Brazil grew 53.2% in one year and 5.5% in April, totaling more than 930 thousand accesses.

The three main players in the segment after Starlink, which holds almost 80% market share, are Hughes (14.7%), Claro (1.7%), and Telebras (1.5%).

Soon, however, the market is expected to gain new competitors, mainly in low orbit, with the entry of the US-based Amazon LEO and the Chinese SpaceSail and AST SpaceMobile.

ISPs

Among the other highlights, Vero, whose main shareholder is Vinci Partners and which is investing to position itself as a national mobile operator in the coming years, is moving closer to Alloha Fibra (Giga + Fibra) and is expected to soon become the country’s sixth-largest broadband provider.

Both recorded a decline in users in April, but Alloha Fibra’s losses, which is going through an internal reorganization process, have been more pronounced.

Recently, Alloha was overtaken by Brasil TecPar, which has Australian firm Macquarie Capital among its main investors and is betting on an aggressive M&A strategy to grow.

Brasil TecPar has already carried out more than 60 M&As. In February, in one of its most recent moves, it announced the acquisition of the fiber-optic assets of Ligga, valued at 495 million (mn) reais, with the assumption of around 1.28 billion (bn) reais in debt and the incorporation of 344,000 new accesses.

In April alone, Brasil Tecpar grew 0.4%. In the 12 months up to the month, the increase was 28.8%, Anatel’s statistics show.

Overall, the market remains contested among the largest ISPs and new acquisitions are expected to be formalized.

The largest ISP in Brazil is still Brisanet, with 1.57mn customers, but closely followed by a group formed by Brasil TecPar (1.37mn), Alloha (1.34mn), Vero (1.31mn) and Desktop (1.20mn).

The latter was acquired by Claro in March for 4 billion reais, but continues to operate its own fiber-optic internet plans and regional customer service.

Anatel has already approved the deal, but the transaction still needs to be approved by Cade.

Mobile segment

With 23.5% of the total, 5G technology already exceeds 64 million mobile accesses in the country.

Vivo, Claro and TIM lead the segment with market shares of 40%, 35.7% and 23.5%, respectively. Of the three, the Telefónica subsidiary is the only operator with more than 100 million mobile contracts in Brazil.

With the service already practically universalized in the country, growth, however, has been slower and driven by specific segments. Vivo expanded its mobile base by 1.8% in the 12 months to April and 0.5% in the month.

Claro and TIM have already recorded annual variations of 3.7% and -0.4%, respectively.

The segment with the highest added value and average revenue per user (ARPU), consisting of postpaid and hybrid plans, recorded more than 1.1 million new net activations in April.

In this segment, Vivo expanded its leadership and accounted for around 45% of the new lines, followed by TIM, which showed a recovery in market share. Claro, in turn, slowed the pace of new subscriptions compared with previous months.

Overall, however, the expansion of the mobile market is driven by the corporate and internet of things (IoT/M2M) segments, including connections for card machines, payment points and sensors. The internet of things is growing at a pace up to 17 times faster than that of conventional mobile telephony.

Machine-to-machine and IoT connections already total 55.5 million active chips in segments such as tracking, telemetry, agribusiness, and automation.

Maintaining the recent pace of expansion, IoT and M2M connections in Brazil could end 2026 with between 60 million and 65 million accesses.

As a market reference, the Brazilian Internet of Things Association, ABINC, indicates that 88.5% of participants in the sector expect expansion in 2026.

In addition, different studies project annual growth of the Brazilian IoT market in the range of 16%–19% in the coming years, and companies in the sector are already targeting other countries in the region.

(The original version of this content was written in Portuguese)