Argentina’s telecoms market continues to show impressive growth, having bounced back strongly from its nadir in 2002. The mobile and broadband segments lead the recovery, showing very robust subscriber growth. Still, the Argentine market has not reached the same level of revenues—especially in dollar terms—that it garnered before the 2001 peso devaluation crisis, although the mobile segment should do so in 2006. Fierce competition in all telecom segments (except for local telephony) has lowered prices and spurred demand from lower segments of the society, making profitable growth a challenge for the majority of operators and keeping revenue growth well below subscriber growth. Going forward, both mobile and fixed operators will negotiate with foreign debtors and the government to increase tariffs, which have remained frozen since the crisis.
Argentina is a competitive market in Latin America. Market consolidation has reshaped the face of the Argentine market, making long-distance, datacoms, and broadband extremely competitive segments. However, Telefónica and Telecom continue to dominate the local telephony market. In the Pay TV arena, Cablevisión is the dominant player. Telefónica and Telecom carry most of the long-distance traffic. Argentina is one of South America's leading media markets. The country has hundreds of commercial radio stations, dozens of TV stations, and one of the world's highest take-up rates for cable TV (44 percent household penetration). Local group Clarin is one of the strongest players dominating the press. It is important to note that two electric companies, Edenor and Transener, have announced interest in entering the communications market, however, it is not clear how and when this entrance could happen.
