Summary

  • Anatel reports a national mobile HHI of 0.3048, below its 2027 ceiling of 0.3594.
  • The same report puts the median mobile HHI near 0.60 in municipalities of up to 30,000 people and says CR2 exceeded 80% in 4,889 municipalities.

The national figure clears a threshold. It does not describe every place where a mobile customer lives. For someone weighing whether another plan is viable at home, the index cannot show which networks reach that address.

In its 20 October competition report, Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, Anatel, says the national Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) for mobile service reached 0.3048 in the third quarter of 2026. That is below the agency’s Strategic Goal 9 ceiling of 0.3594 through 2027. By the metric the agency set for the national market, the goal was met.

Then the report changes scale. In municipalities with up to 30,000 residents, the median HHI was about 0.60, and the upper whisker reached 1.00. In cities above 500,000 people, the report places the HHI around 0.30–0.35. Its concentration ratios show how broadly the local pattern extends: CR4 was above 90% in the report’s 5,564 municipalities; CR2 exceeded 80% in 4,889 of them. These are the regulator’s calculations from access and market-share records, not a new measure of the national target.

That distinction is the story. A national index can move in the desired direction while the distribution of competitive conditions remains uneven. Population scale appears alongside concentration in Anatel’s municipal analysis: smaller markets have higher medians and a wider range. The national result and the local result are not competing answers to the same question. One tracks an aggregate benchmark; the other asks how market shares are distributed among localities.

The figures do not establish that residents in a concentrated municipality face higher prices, worse service, or no practical alternative. A concentration index does not tell a household whether a particular network reaches its address, whether plans are affordable, or whether switching is possible. Nor does an HHI of 1.00 mean every municipality under 30,000 people is a monopoly: it is the top of the reported distribution, while the median is about 0.60.

Anatel’s own language makes the boundary visible. It says the national indicator is the parameter used to follow the mobile-market target, then presents municipal HHI and CR ratios as a complement that may inform future regulatory work or a possible review of the institutional benchmark. That is an analytical opening, not a commitment to change the target. The regulator has identified a scale question; the report does not decide how it should be answered.

The next useful comparison is therefore not a single pass/fail label. It is whether future reports continue to publish the national series beside municipal distributions, and whether the underlying access data and calculation methods remain comparable across editions. If the public dashboard and report diverge, that would require reconciliation before drawing a trend. Until then, “the national target was met” is accurate; “mobile competition is even across Brazil” is not what the report’s municipal pages say.

Anatel’s 3Q2026 Competition Monitoring Report is the source for the figures and the agency’s stated interpretation. Its official archive lists prior editions. The regulator also identifies its access and market-share panel as the underlying source for the municipal charts.