Colombia. The study "The role of OTT services in the communications sector in Colombia", developed by the CRC, allows us to understand the impact of the applications used for the transmission of audio, video and other content through the Internet and the implications they have on the future of the ICT sector in the country.
The analysis includes the evaluation of the audiovisual, messaging and mobile voice market, compared to Over-the-Top (OTT) services, revealing the penetration figures of online platforms such as Netflix and WhatsApp, among others. Important data for the making of investment or expansion decisions by agents of new and established markets, as well as for the development of public policy and sectoral regulation.
Although in 2016 the CRC had already done a first study, it is the first time that it covers the three communications services (telephony, messaging and television) and that it uses econometric models to determine if there is a substitution effect on services due to potential competitive pressure of the platforms.
According to the study, despite the boom in the use of services provided by platforms through the Internet, for now there is no evidence of a phenomenon of substitution between traditional services and applications.
In the case of the consumption of audiovisual content, the study shows that 42% of Colombians use applications to consume audiovisual content, 72% have a subscription TV service, 12% of households have the DTT signal, as the most advanced system available, while 13% receive only the analog TV signal. Likewise, it was identified that only 2% of users have canceled their services for using applications such as Netflix, a platform that has a penetration of 15%. 13 out of 100 users of such an application access the service through the account of a friend or family member outside their home.
As for sending text messages, 80% of Colombians use online applications to send them, 58% through WhatsApp and 35% through Facebook and 48% have stopped using the SMS service for using applications.
Finally, it was concluded that 49% of Colombians use applications to make calls. Of the total population, 48% access the service through WhatsApp, 15% Facebook and 13% Skype. 17.6% of users decreased the consumption of traditional operator minutes to make calls through these applications.
"The analysis carried out shows that the dynamics between traditional operators and platforms is increasingly intense, consumers have many more options and that will generate, possibly, significant changes in the coming years, so it is necessary to evaluate the evolution of these results," explained Carlos Lugo Silva, Executive Director of the CRC.
For the development of the study, the Commission built, with the support of the sector, a new methodology that consisted of collecting quantitative information through surveys to carry out an analysis of market trends, and estimating econometric models, which would also allow periodic monitoring of the markets in order to analyze the changes or trends that may occur with respect to the use of OTT services and their impact on traditional services in the years to come.
See the study: "The role of OTT services in the communications sector in Colombia" by clicking here.
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