According to a detailed survey by Anatel, Brazil had 74 million fixed and mobile phones in January, of which 38.8m were fixed lines in service. The number of installed lines was 49.3m. Most of the difference was due to Vésper, which has installed capacity for many more customers than its current base (under 1 million). So it shouldn?t be concluded that the Brazilian system has substantial idle capacity.
Growth has been fastest in the mobile segment. The number of mobile phones rose from 34.9m in December to 35.2m in January. Migration of 19 conventional cellular providers brought the number of PCS subscribers to 21m, well ahead of 14.2m cellular phones. Of the 21m PCS phones, 5.9m were postpaid and some 15m prepaid. Similarly for conventional cellular: 3.7m were postpaid and 10.4m prepaid.
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