According to analyst firm The CIU, in the second quarter of 2026, the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (Comisión Reguladora de Telecomunicaciones, CRT) deactivated 1.7 million mobile lines because their users had not registered them.
Fernando Esquivel, The CIU’s director of Market Research, said the mobile subscriber base stood at 157.1 million lines as of June 30, representing an annual increase of 0.8% but a quarterly decline of 1.7 million lines.
“The mobile market remained in a restructuring phase as a result of mandatory line registration or linkage. The biggest impact was concentrated in the prepaid segment, which lost 6.3 million lines during the first half of the year,” Esquivel said.