Mexico. The prices of mobile services and fixed service packages that include internet, pay TV and home telephony, as of December 2022 had an annual decrease of 7.82% and 8.34% each.
This was left according to information from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (INEGI). This reduction contrasts with an increase of 7.82% in the prices of the basket of 299 products (generic) considered to measure inflation.
FIGURE 1
Figure 1 clearly shows the contrast in recent years between headline inflation (NPI) and the evolution of the prices of mobile telephony services (including internet and short messages) and internet, telephony and TV packages, which have decreased drastically. It is worth mentioning that for the first half of January 2023 this trend continues.
This represents a direct benefit over the 88.6 million internet users in Mexico, which is equivalent to 75.6% of the population aged 6 or older and whose uses of the internet are mainly concentrated to communicate (93.8%), search for information (89.9%), access social networks (89.8%) and training or support education (83.1%). The decrease in prices has a direct impact on access to and use of these services.
It also highlights that the generics of mobile telephony and internet, telephony and pay TV packages worked as an "anchor" to prevent inflation from being higher than observed, which is explained in the following table, which shows the ten generics whose price decreased and that had the greatest contribution to stop this increase, and that although they did not manage to reduce inflation, they did mitigate it.
When ordering all the generics of the National Consumer Price Index (INPC) from highest to lowest, according to their incidences on general inflation in 2022, it is observed that LP domestic gas, as well as mobile and package services were the ones that contributed the most to the decline.
Of the 299 generics that make up the INPC and that are classified into 12 divisions, it stands out that only Communications (which includes mobile telephony generics and packages) presented an annual price reduction, with a decrease of 5.9 percent.
The decrease in communications prices meant savings that families were able to allocate to the consumption of other essential goods or services. This reduction is important considering that in 2020 households in Mexico spent an average of $347 monthly on mobile services and $465 on fixed services, representing 1.9% and 2.23% of their income, respectively. In this way, the proportion allocated to communications, with the same services, could have decreased.
This reflects that the telecommunications sector in Mexico remains stable for the benefit of users of mobile and fixed services.
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