Colombia. This is the fifth edition of the study that the CRC has been developing annually since 2018, closely monitoring trends and changes in the use of online and traditional communication services in the country.
Over The Top (OTT) services allow the transmission of content such as audio, video, and text over the Internet. Examples of these services are messaging applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal, as well as audiovisual platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney Plus, among others.
The study called "The role of OTT services in the communications sector in Colombia – 2023" in this new version includes a broader analysis of the business segment, in addition to continuing with the evaluation of the behavior of the use of these services at the residential level, allowing a more complete and detailed understanding of consumption patterns and preferences for the use of OTT services in Colombia.
Device Ownership
According to the study, the television is the device with the most presence in Colombian homes with 97%. 53% of these households reported having a Smart TV, a figure higher than the proportion of laptops (1 in 5 households).
Use of Services
According to the usage habits of the respondents, of the total number of people who have a television at home, 58% mentioned that in the last week they received the signal through subscription television, 24% did so through aerial antenna (analog) and 14% through DTT.
Within the national content that people consume through analog television, Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) and subscription television, the preference is focused on news and novels, while on the side of online applications the consumption of audiovisual content is oriented to movies and series.
64% of the people surveyed said they made or received calls both through the operator's service and from applications; while 18% say they make calls only by operator and 6% make calls only by application.
WhatsApp continues to be the most used application for calls or video calls, maintaining its penetration of 73% among users who use applications to make or receive calls.
Of the households that have a landline, 55% say they use it to make calls and 54% say they use it to receive calls.
In the case of sending messages, Colombians prefer to use mobile applications over the messaging service offered by the operator, since for each respondent who said they use the operator, two use applications.
WhatsApp continues to be the most used application among smartphone users to send instant messages, its penetration is 99%.
Contracting of services
44% of households say they have a packaged fixed communications service. Of these households, 55% have an Internet + TV package, followed by Triple Pay (Internet + TV + Phone) with 27% and the Internet + Phone package with 15%.
Preferences by age range
Apps like Facebook Messenger and Instagram chat are most used among 18- and 25-year-olds respectively. The social networks Tiktok and Discord focus on users under 26 years of age, while the social network X (formerly Twitter) is preferred in the group of those over 40.
The radio audience is concentrated in older population groups, 57.4% of the people who say they listen to it are over 36 years old while 35.4% are concentrated between 15 and 35 years of age.
Business dynamics
In terms of equipment, companies mainly have desktop computers (85%), laptops (80%), landlines (73%), smartphones (69%), and Smart TVs (62%).
For companies, the use of IP telephony services increased significantly, from 58% in 2022 to 91% in 2023, as well as streaming services (from 4% to 30%), while the pay TV service showed a more moderate growth (from 31% to 37%).
88% of companies indicated that they have mobile phone services. The average amount of payment for this service by large companies is approximately $1,500,000, while for medium and small companies the average is $425,500 and $200,000 respectively.
The use of fixed telephony service by companies was reduced. In contrast, there is an increase in the use of applications for videoconferencing and voice calls.
99% of companies with fixed telephony service indicated that they make national calls through this service, while 31% make international calls, a figure that increased compared to the previous year. In large companies this percentage is 52%, while in medium and small companies it is 36% and 17%, respectively.
3 out of 10 Colombian companies reported paying for the WhatsApp business service. When discriminating by size, this percentage increases for large companies where the frequency is 4 out of 10.
7 out of 10 companies stated that they had invested in advertising, especially large and medium-sized companies. This percentage increased 30% compared to the previous year. 5 out of 10 companies made a greater advertising investment in national channels compared to the previous 5 years.
There is evidence of a growing trend in advertising investment in digital media, with Facebook and Instagram being the social networks in which investment is mainly made, followed by Youtube and TikTok.
65% of the companies indicated that they needed to send a physical document and 69% a package, while 71% mentioned that they sent invoices and statements by e-mail.
The analysis carried out by the CRC shows a contrast between the results of the business segment and the residential segment. For example, while households in Colombia have moderate or low use of fixed telephony and document messaging services, most companies make use of these services.
"We invite all agents in the sector to consult this publication, the result of a monitoring exercise carried out by the CRC, which makes relevant data available on the use of OTT services as an input to carry out analyses, studies, as well as for strategic decision-making, public policies and regulations.
Finally, we would like to announce that at the CRC we are currently working on the sixth version of this study, which we will publish in 2025 and will bring important news. Our goal is to have a more complete and holistic perspective that allows us to make an approximation to the dynamics of the market and the offer of the service, for which it is important to integrate the vision of the providers of these online services." Lina María Duque Del Vecchio, Commissioner and Executive Director of the CRC, concluded.
