Brazilian Telecom Stocks

Previously, I had written about Brazil Financial Stocks and Brazil Chemical, Energy and Mining Stocks. The fast growing country of Brazil has several telecommunications companies which are publicly traded, mostly on the New York Stock Exchange. Like the country itself, the telecom industry has also been expanding rapidly. Many of these stocks were up over 50% last year. The following companies may be worth calling on.

Brasil Telecom Participacoes S.A. (BRP) The company provides telecommunication services in Brazil, with 8.4 million lines of service throughout the region. As of 2006, the company had 277,854 public telephones. In addition, the company provides a variety of local services that include voice mail, call forwarding and caller ID.
Long-distance services are provided in the inter-region and international formats. The company also provides fixed-to-mobile services consisting of calls that start on a fixed-line telephone and end on a mobile phone. To provide international services, the company entered into an agreement with Telemar Norte Leste and Telecomunicacoes de Sao Paulo.
The network services provided by the company include data transmission services that are offered to residential and corporate clients in the form of Turbo, a high-speed internet system that runs on the ADSL technology. The company also provides other data transmission services for corporate and government customers. The data transmission services consist of point-to-point family for corporate customers, network infrastructure family which is for corporate security, internet access family, which is for corporate customers as an internet backbone and advanced services family, which is a blend of several technologies and services.
The stock has a P/E of 12 and a yield of 0.4%.

Brasil Telecom S.A. (BTM) One of the major telecommunications companies in Brazil is Brasil Telecom, which is headquartered out of Brasilia. It is one of only three land-line companies in Brazil since the break-up of Telebras. The company was originally called Tele Centro Sul, and its service covers Acre, Rondonia, Goias, Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Mato Grosso do Sul, Parana, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul and the Brazilian Federal District. The company currently has nearly 6,000 employees.
Brasil Telecom provides a vast number of services to its subscribers, including local services, installation, monthly subscriptions, public telephones, supplemented local services, long-distance services, intrastate services, international long-distance, internet, multimedia, data transmission and wireless services.
The stock has a P/E of 10 and a yield of 0.6%.

Net Servios de Comunicao (NETC) The largest cable television provider in Latin America, Net Servicos de Comunicacao has a total of 1.89 million subscribers. In addition to the television service, the company offers broadband internet services, of which 830,000 subscribers use, as well as telephone over cable under the Net Fone via Embratel name, for 257,000 subscribers.
The company is a multi-service company that provides pay-television and internet access to 1.8 million homes in 44 cities of Brazil.
The company provides high-speed internet through its NET Virtua service to 727,000 subscribers, as well as a voice service through NET Fone via Embratel service, which has 182,000 subscribers.
In 2006, the company began to work with Embratel, to begin the process of integrating Voice over IP technology to allow subscribers to make local, long-distance and international calls from any telephone.
The core of the company’s business is in the pay-television service, which includes cable and pay-per-view. This service is available in several cities in Brazil, including Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Porto Alegre, Recife, Brasilia, Goiania, Curitiba and Florianopolis.
This service comes to customers in three major packages, digital, premium and advanced. Digital service is only available to customers in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre. The digital cable service provides high quality broadcasting and video-on-demand services.
The stock has a P/E of 1.5 and a yield of 0.4%.

Tele Norte Celular Participações S.A. (TCN) Tele Norte Celular Participacoes is a telecommunications company that serves Para, Amazonas, Maranhao, Amapa and Roraima in the north part of Brazil. Currently, the company provides service in the Time Division Multiple Access [TDMA] technology sector, while its analog service runs on the Advanced Mobile Phone Service [AMPS].
Currently, the company has a series of prepaid and contract customers, as well as corporate customers. The company provides various telecom services, which include caller ID, voicemail, fax services and informational services that include accessing office e-mails, bank statements and more. Also, the company provides mobile services to subscribers of other service providers while they are in Tele Norte’s area. As of 2006, the company had 1.2 million subscribers.
Tele Norte provides its services in the form of contracts that use rate plans and prepaid cards. For the company, 22.7 percent of its service revenues come from monthly subscription plan customers.
In addition, an internet service is provided by the company called i.amazoniacelular, which includes communication, news and other internet services, including those that allow remote access to personal computers.
The company also sells handsets, accessories, calling cards and provides activation services through four distribution channels, a network of independent local distributors, company-owned stores, a direct sales force for corporate accounts, government accounts and high-volume costumers, and prepaid cards. As of 2006, the company sold prepaid cards at 16,000 point-of-sale locations.
The stock has been generating negative earnings.

Telecomunicacoes de Sao Paulo S.A. (TSP) Telecommunicacoes de Sao Paulo (Telesp), is a communications company that operates in the Sao Paulo State in Brazil. The company generates revenue in excess of $5 billion each year. The parent company for Telesp is Telefonica.
Telesp provides fixed-line telecommunication that include local services, measured service, public telephones, intraregional and international long-distance, multimedia services and network services that include interconnection and leasing of facilities.
The company also provides services that allow cellular service providers and other telecommunication companies to have the ability to use its network.
In total, the telephone network for Telesp is 14.4 million fixed lines, which includes public telephone lines. 74.9 percent of their access lines are of residential use, 20.3 percent are commercial, two percent are public telephones and 2.8 percent are for the company’s own use.
The local service of the company includes measuring service on all calls that originate or end in the local area. Also, Telesp has a telephone service concessionaire to offer local
Services to other states, including Sergipe, Espirito Santo, Rio Grande do Sul, Parana, Santa Catarina and parts of Rio de Janeiro.The company also provides local telephone services in Para, Amapa, Rondonia, Maranhao, Tocantins and Acre.
The stock has a P/E of 10 and a yield of 9.1%.

Telemig Celular Participacoes S.A. (TMB) Telemig is a provider of cellular telecom services in Minas Gerais, Brazil. It offers prepaid and contract services to subscribers, in addition to business solutions for corporate users.
Their services include real time play-by-play of soccer matches, fax reception through mobile handsets, call conferencing, caller line identification, and customized ring tones.
The stock has a P/E of 12 and a yield of 1.7%.

Tele Norte Leste Participacoes S.A. (TNE) Tele Norte Celular Participacoes is a telecommunications company that serves Para, Amazonas, Maranhao, Amapa and Roraima in the north part of Brazil. Currently, the company provides service in the Time Division Multiple Access [TDMA] technology sector, while its analog service runs on the Advanced Mobile Phone Service [AMPS].
Currently, the company has a series of prepaid and contract customers, as well as corporate customers. The company provides telecom services, which include caller ID, voicemail, fax services and informational services that include accessing office e-mails, bank statements and more. The company provides mobile services to subscribers of other service providers while they are in Tele Norte’s area. As of 2006, the company had 1.2 million subscribers.
Tele Norte provides its services in the form of contracts that use rate plans and prepaid cards. 22.7 percent of its service revenues come from monthly subscription plan customers.
The stock has a P/E of 9.

TIM Participacoes S.A. (TSU) The only company in Brazil that offers cellular service throughout the country, TIM Participacoes, uses its subsidiaries, TIM Celular S.A. and TIM Nordeste S.A., to get cellular service across Brazil.
The company is also the largest Global System for Mobile communications operate in the country, in both terms of clients and revenues. Currently, the company has 29.2 million customers and a market share that is just over 25 percent.
TIM Participacoes is a wireless provider in all of Brazil, which uses a global system for its mobile communications technology. In four of the areas it covers, TIM offers time-division multiple access technology as well as GSM. The company also has value services that include text messaging, multimedia messaging services, Blackberry services, video call and wireless application protocol.
The company also provides interconnection services to fixed line and mobile providers.
The stock has a P/E of 1.3 and a yield of 2.6%.

Vivo Participações S.A. (VIV). Vivo is primarily a cellular company that has a large presence in the wireless space In addition as providing internet services.
The largest mobile phone provider in Brazil, and South America, Vivo has 28 million subscribers to its service. The network is based on the IS-95/cdmaOne technology, with some parts of it on an analog AMPS service, or TMDA. Currently, the network is being converted to CDMA2000.
The company currently operates through its subsidiary Vivo S.A., which is the cellular operator in Brazil. Currently, the service is in 19 Brazilian states, covering 7.3 million square kilometers, or 85.6 percent of Brazil’s territory. Currently, the company provides its service in the GSM, CDMA and TDMA frequencies.
In Sao Paulo, Vivo has 10.7 million cellular lines, while in Espirito Santo, it has 4.9 million cellular lines.
The company also provides voicemail, voicemail notification, call forwarding, text messaging, data service and caller ID to its customers, using the wireless application protocol. The company also launched three services recently that are location-based. The first, Vivo Localiza Familia, allows children to be located and monitored by parents via the internet and their cell phones.
Vivo Localiza Amigos allows the user to locate friends, as well as be located by friends, while Vivo Co-Piloto, assists users in moving through Brazilian cities.
The stock has a P/E of 20 and a yield of 0.2%.

Author does not own any of the above.

By Fred Fuld at Stockerblog.com