Honduras telecoms market: The state of play

Honduras ended the third quarter of 2024 with 8.64mn telecom accesses in service, considering fixed telephony, mobile telephony and internet, according to data compiled by BNamericas with statistics from regulator Conatel.

With the exception of fixed internet, driven by the slow advance of fiber optics in the country, accesses to all other services decreased in Q3 compared to the end of the previous quarter.

According to Conatel's report, Honduran operators reported a combined 19.1bn lempiras (US$740mn) in revenues year-to-September, up 2.84% year-over-year, with 6.49bn lempiras in the third quarter.

Meanwhile, the combined investment of the country's main telcos fell 8.3% to 3.76bn lempiras.

At the end of September, the telecoms sector had a workforce of 34,774, up from 33,605 at end-June.

Mobile

Mobile telephony lines fell 1.22% in Q3 to 7.70mn.

Overall penetration dropped 3.07 percentage points to 78%.

Of total lines in service, 87.9% were prepaid and 12.1% postpaid. The postpaid base continues to grow, albeit very slowly.

The mobile market is led by MiIlicom's Tigo, with roughly 65.3% of lines, followed by Claro with most of the rest whereas state company Hondutel had 0.04%.

In comparison to the previous quarter, Tigo lost 110,000 mobile accesses whereas Claro gained some 20,000.

Internet

The number of fixed internet subscribers grew 2.52% in the period to 489,714, while mobile internet subscribers declined 1.51% to 6.70mn.

The latter refers mostly to 3G and 4G technology. Honduras has not yet fully launched 5G technology.

Fixed internet density increased 2.16%, reaching 4.97% at end-September. The majority of subscribers are in the departments of Atlántida and Colón.

Mobile internet density, on the other hand, declined 1.89% to 67.98%.

The watchdog also reported that the number of fixed internet subscribers with broadband capacity increased 6.25%, reaching 370,576.

Tigo led the mobile internet market with a 75.1% share while América Móvil's Claro had 24.8%.

The Millicom brand was also the leader in the more disputed fixed segment with a 34.5% share, followed by Claro with 28.3%. Next came ISPs Cable Satélite with 5.2%, Cable Color with 3.11% and En Red with 2.77%. The other 23% was held by smaller operators.

Landlines

Fixed telephony accesses dropped 0.75% in the quarter to 451,279, with a penetration rate of 4.58%.

The segment is essentially a monopoly as of the total lines in service, 63% belonged to Hondutel and 37% to resellers, with barely no changes in the annual and quarterly comparisons.

Players

According to Conatel, a total of 1,287 companies were authorized to operate in the country as of end-September, including public and private telephony, internet, radio and TV groups.

Of the total, 635 referred to broadcasting permits, 490 to public operators and 162 to private ones.