América Móvil dominates in mobile Internet access service

América Móvil dominated mobile Internet access service in Mexico, maintaining a market share of over 70% in 2021, informed the Federal Telecommunications Institute (IFT).

Its coverage went from 71% in 2020 to 70.5% in 2021.

In general, América Móvil continues to be the most important provider of telephony and Internet services and the preponderant economic agent (AEP) in the telecommunications sector.

According to the Federal Telecommunications and Broadcasting Law (LFTR), an AEP is an operator that has an aggregate share (telephony + Internet) greater than 50%, which is measured using the following criteria: number of users, subscriptions, traffic carried on the network or network capacity.

América Móvil

Consequently, América Móvil’s operations are still subject to asymmetric regulation measures, issued by the IFT to promote competitive conditions for all operators.

Every two years, the IFT evaluates the effectiveness of the regulation, and may modify or introduce measures, or eliminate them, if it considers that barriers to competition have disappeared. The last evaluations were carried out in 2017 and 2020.

As a result of the evaluation carried out in 2020, it was considered that the IFT would determine specific geographic areas where the wholesale service tariff for indirect access to the local loop would not be regulated.

As a result, in 2021 such regulation was eliminated in 52 municipalities.

Other participants

AT&T increased its market share in mobile Internet access service in Mexico from 16.1% in 2020 to 17.6% in 2021.

In contrast, Telefónica reduced its share from 10.4% in 2020 to 9.6% in 2021.

Meanwhile, mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) decreased their share from 2.5 to 2.2 percent.

Mexico’s competition regime is regulated by the Mexican Constitution (Article 28), the Federal Economic Competition Law (LFCE) and, as regards telecommunications, the LFTR.

In order to implement the LFCE, Regulatory Provisions have been issued.

Since the previous review of Mexico in 2017, these provisions have not been substantially modified; however, new Regulatory Provisions have been issued related, for example, to the immunity program.