According to the latest Market Monitor Report from Counterpoint Research, the overall mobile phone market in Peru shrank by 24% YoY, but the smartphone segment grew a healthy 21% YoY as smartphone penetration continues to grow in the total Latin American (LATAM) market.

Commenting on the findings, Peter Richardson, Director at Counterpoint Research said, “Mobile operators dominate the Peruvian market. Open channels account for only 7% of the market; operators subsidize mobile handsets as they compete to increase market share.  Entel reintroduced subsidies when it entered the Peruvian market at the end of 2014. Entel brought balance to the operator ecosystem and also advanced technology; Entel has the highest smartphone penetration among the operators. More than half of all the devices sold in Peru were 4G enabled devices. However the feature phone segment still accounts for about 30% of the market.”

Tina Lu, Senior Analyst at Counterpoint Research added, “Peru is a unique and highly competitive market, with no absolute winner. None of the brands, except Nokia, has achieved more than 20% market share in any quarter for the past three years.  Alcatel, BMobile and Samsung have been top performers, alternating the top spot during last two years. This is the first quarter that Huawei is among the top three performers; its share more than doubling year over year.  It has done this by offering the most affordable 4G large screen smartphone (or phablet) in the market.”

Ms Lu, commenting on operator channel performance, notes, “Movistar has been leading the sales of mobile phones in both volume and value in Peru.  Movistar has also been the leader among the operators.  Claro is the second biggest operator in Peru, but has been losing subscription share to Entel’s strong 4G network and aggressive offering. Entel was the latest entrant to the market but it has the best geographic coverage among the 4G networks, which gave it a competitive advantage over Claro and even Movistar.”

Market Summary: 

• The Peruvian mobile phone market shrank by 24% YoY, but smartphone segment grew 21% YoY.
• Smartphones represented more than 70% of total mobile phone sales across all channels, except in Claro.
• Entel led smartphone penetration with more than 89% share of operator sales.
• LTE accounted for around 54% of all the mobile phones sold in the quarter.
• The US$ 0-50 wholesale price band was the most important segment contributing almost 69% of all mobile phones shipped in the quarter.

Vendor Summary: 

• Alcatel led the mobile phone market with 17% share, up from 12.5% a year ago.  It is also the largest feature phone supplier in the Peruvian market.
• Huawei also had the highest YoY share growth in volume. It more than doubled its share in one year. Its bestselling mobile devices models were the Huawei Y635, an entry level, 4G, phablet and the Huawei P8 Lite smartphone.
• Samsung was second in volume and value share in Peru, and it had an impressive 80% YoY growth.  The Galaxy J5 and Galaxy J7 were the best-selling models during the quarter.

Channel Summary:

• Alcatel One Touch dominated Movistar and Entel, and it was the second leading brand in Bittel
• Samsung was the leading brand in the open channel and the second largest brand in Claro.
• Azumi was the leading brand in Claro.
• The open channel was led by Samsung, followed by a regional brand Verykool.
• Bitel was the leading brand in others, followed by Alcatel.

 Exhibit 2: Peruvian Mobile Phone OEM Ranking by Channel in Q1 2016

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Methodology

The Market Monitor research is based on sell-in (shipments) estimates based on vendor’s IR results, vendor polling, triangulated with sell-through (sales), supply chain checks and secondary research.