Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO): BCG Matrix [Dec-2025 Updated]

You're looking for the clearest picture of where Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO) is actually making money and where it's burning capital right now, heading into late 2025. Honestly, the story is one of balancing a rock-solid core-like that 38% mobile market share generating a 25% EBITDA margin-against massive, necessary bets like the 5G buildout and Fiber-to-the-Home expansion. We've mapped their entire portfolio using the BCG Matrix so you can instantly see which services are the Stars driving future growth, which are the Cash Cows funding everything, and which Question Marks demand immediate strategic attention. Dive in below to see the defintely capital allocation map.

Background of Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO)

You're looking at Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO), one of the main telecom players down in Argentina. Honestly, the company's structure is quite broad; it's not just phone lines anymore. Telecom Argentina S.A. provides a whole suite of services including mobile and fixed-line telephony, high-speed internet connectivity, and cable television programming.

To be fair, the business has expanded beyond the core telecom offerings you might expect. They are also involved in broadcasting, cybersecurity, and they've been pushing their fintech arm, Personal Pay, which saw its user base grow to 3.6 million as of late 2024. The company itself is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and you see it traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

A major event shaping the company recently was the incorporation of Telefónica Móviles Argentina (TMA) results, which started impacting the numbers significantly in 2025. For the first half of 2025 (1H25), this consolidation helped push consolidated revenues up to P$3,357,004 million, a 44.4% jump year-over-year.

When we look at the segments, mobile services are definitely the biggest piece of the pie by service revenue, making up 50.8% of that total in 1H25. By mid-2025, the combined mobile subscriber base across Telecom (excluding TMA) and TMA was substantial, with Telecom standalone at about 20.9 million accesses.

Still, the financial picture is complex, as you'd expect in that operating environment. Despite the revenue growth and operational recovery, Telecom Argentina S.A. posted a consolidated net loss of P$75,554 million for 1H25, largely due to unfavorable net financial results. However, the balance sheet did show asset growth, with total assets reaching 15,630 million Argentine pesos by September 30, 2025, up from 13,345 million at the end of 2024. As of late 2025, the market capitalization stood around $5.57B.

Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO) - BCG Matrix: Stars

You're analyzing Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO)'s portfolio, and the Star quadrant is where the action is-high market share in a market that's still expanding. These are the units that need heavy investment to maintain their lead, but they're the ones that will become your future Cash Cows, so you defintely want to fund them now.

The Argentine telecoms market itself is showing growth, projected to reach about $10 billion USD in 2025, based on a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.50% from 2019 to 2033. This growing environment supports the Star classification for TEO's leading segments. Following the acquisition of Telefónica Móviles Argentina (TMA), Telecom Argentina is now the biggest player in the country, with the company estimating a market share of about 61% in the mobile segment and 47% in the fixed broadband segment as of early 2025.

Here's a look at the key metrics supporting the Star categorization for these high-potential areas:

Converged services (mobile, fixed, TV) bundling, driving higher Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).

• Mobile services are the primary revenue driver, accounting for 48.2% of total service revenues in 1Q25.
• Broadband ARPU for Telecom (excluding TMA) reached P$22,538.5 in 1Q25, a real-term increase of 13.5% versus 1Q24.
• Pay TV subscribers for Telecom (excluding TMA) reached 3.1 million accesses in 1Q25, up 0.7% versus 1Q24.
• The Flow platform is enhancing its entertainment offering with services like Flow+, which includes flexible subscription packs.

High-value post-paid mobile subscribers, a segment growing faster than prepaid.

You see a clear trend where the higher-value postpaid base is showing better relative growth or less decline than the prepaid base, which is typical for a market leader pushing value-added services. For TMA, the postpaid base grew by 1.5% in 1Q25 versus 1Q24, while the prepaid base actually declined by -0.6%. As of March 31, 2025, postpaid customers made up 49% of TMA's total mobile accesses. For the main Telecom operation (excluding TMA), postpaid represented 39% of total mobile accesses on the same date.

Strategic B2B cloud and data center services, capitalizing on enterprise digital transformation.

Telecom Argentina is actively positioning itself as a digital company with regional impact, focusing on DIGITALIZATION / CLOUDIFICATION / APIFICATION. While specific 2025 revenue figures for this segment aren't explicitly broken out in the latest reports, the strategic focus is clear. Industry benchmarks show that for comparable telcos, growth in the Enterprise segment, fueled by cloud and cybersecurity, has reached as high as 28.2% year-over-year, signaling the high-growth potential TEO is aiming to capture.

Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO) - BCG Matrix: Cash Cows

You know the drill with Cash Cows; these are the businesses that print money, funding the rest of the portfolio. For Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO), the core mobile operations and established fixed infrastructure fit this mold, even with the market's volatility.

The mobile segment, which includes the Personal brand, remains the main revenue engine. For the nine months ended September 30, 2025 (9M25), consolidated mobile service revenues hit P$2,735,909 million. This segment represented 51.4% of total service revenues for 9M25. As of September 30, 2025, Telecom Argentina (excluding the recently consolidated TMA) had approximately 20.3 million mobile subscribers in Argentina, though this figure showed a 5.0% year-over-year decline, largely due to disconnecting lines with no traffic. Postpaid accesses made up 50% of total mobile accesses as of September 30, 2025.

The legacy broadband infrastructure, particularly the fixed network, continues to provide stable, high-margin cash. While the fixed-line customer base is shrinking, the focus is on higher-value broadband products. For Telecom Argentina (excluding TMA), the average monthly revenue per user (ARPU) for broadband services, restated in constant currency as of September 30, 2025, was P$25,041.5. This represented a real-terms increase of 1.9% compared to the same period in 9M24. Fixed broadband penetration in the country approached 25% in early 2025.

The overall financial performance for 9M25 reflects the scale of these mature operations. Consolidated revenues for the nine months ended September 30, 2025, reached ARS 5,622,561 million. You can see how these core businesses underpin the top line, even when facing macroeconomic headwinds. The operational efficiency in these high-volume segments is evident in the profitability metrics.

Operational efficiency is definitely improving. The consolidated EBITDA margin in constant currency for the first nine months of 2025 expanded to 30.5%. This is an improvement of 170 basis points versus the margin reported in the first nine months of 2024. This margin performance is what you want to see from a Cash Cow; it means they are milking the asset effectively, generating cash flow that can be redeployed elsewhere, like covering corporate debt or funding growth initiatives.

Here's a quick look at the 9M25 financial snapshot for these cash-generating units:

The focus for supporting these cash cows is on efficiency, not massive market expansion spending. You should expect minimal promotional spend here. Key operational metrics that support this 'milking' strategy include:

• Mobile services accounted for 51.4% of service revenues in 9M25.
• Mobile service revenues in Argentina grew 88.6% nominally vs. 9M24.
• Broadband ARPU increased by 1.9% in real terms vs. 9M24.
• Postpaid accesses were 50% of total mobile accesses as of September 30, 2025.
• Fixed broadband penetration approached 25% in early 2025.

The company achieved a 123% increase in nominal EBITDA for 9M25 versus 9M24. Free cash flow expanded to $400 million in Q3 2025, an increase of over $150 million. This is the cash you want to see flowing up to fund the riskier Question Marks.

Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO) - BCG Matrix: Dogs

Dogs are units or products with a low market share and low growth rates. They frequently break even, neither earning nor consuming much cash. Dogs are generally considered cash traps because businesses have money tied up in them, even though they bring back almost nothing in return. These business units are prime candidates for divestiture.

For Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO), the Dog quadrant is characterized by legacy services where market growth is negative or minimal, and the company is actively shifting resources away from them toward higher-growth areas like mobile and fiber broadband. You see this clearly in the year-over-year performance of the older service lines.

• - Fixed-line voice telephony, a declining market with minimal revenue contribution.
• - Older 2G/3G network infrastructure, requiring maintenance but yielding low returns.
• - Legacy copper-based internet and data services, facing obsolescence and high churn risk.

The fixed-line voice and data segment clearly shows this low-growth profile. For the nine months ending September 30, 2025 (9M25), consolidated revenues from fixed voice and data services reached P$676,563 million, a nominal increase of 43.6% compared to 9M24, primarily due to the consolidation of Telefónica Móviles Argentina (TMA) results which amounted to P$282,029 million in that period. However, looking at Telecom Argentina excluding TMA, the segment experienced a real-term decline of 16.3% in 9M25. This real-term contraction, coupled with fixed voice revenues increasing below inflation and a declining customer base in the first half of 2025 (1H25), firmly places this service in the Dog category.

The infrastructure supporting older services is also a clear Dog candidate. Telecom Argentina (Personal) had confirmed plans to deactivate its 3G network starting in Q1 2023, signaling the end-of-life for that specific network generation. This move is part of a broader industry trend to free up spectrum for 4G and 5G deployment.

Legacy copper-based internet, represented by Cable Modem technology, is rapidly losing ground to fiber optics. As of the end of 2024, Cable Modem still accounted for 47.2% market share with 5.63 million subscribers, but this was a decrease from 6 million subscribers at the end of 2023. In contrast, Fiber optics was second with 40.1% share and 4.88 million subscriptions, having added nearly one million connections year-over-year. The market is actively migrating away from the copper-based service.

Here's a quick look at the numbers that define the low-growth/low-share nature of these legacy services as of the latest available data:

The fixed telephony customer base for Telecom (excluding TMA) was 2.8 million in 9M25, of which 2.2 million were IP lines. This shows the ongoing, albeit slow, migration within the fixed segment away from older technologies toward IP-based services, which still face low overall market growth compared to mobile data. The national fixed telephony subscriber count fell to 6.42 million connections at the end of 2024 from 7 million in 2023.

Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO) - BCG Matrix: Question Marks

These business segments for Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO) operate in high-growth markets but currently hold a relatively low market share, demanding significant cash investment to capture future potential.

The strategy here is to aggressively invest to convert these high-potential areas into Stars, or risk them becoming Dogs if market share gains stall.

The focus areas identified as Question Marks are characterized by substantial capital expenditure (CapEx) requirements to build out next-generation infrastructure and capture emerging digital service adoption.

• - Early-stage 5G network rollout, a high-growth market needing massive capital expenditure (CapEx).
• - Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH) expansion, a low-penetration, high-investment area with uncertain near-term returns.
• - Digital financial services (Personal Pay), high potential but low market share against established fintech rivals.
• - New streaming and Over-The-Top (OTT) content ventures, requiring significant content investment and user acquisition.

The commitment to future network capacity is evident in the planned capital deployment for 5G. Telecom Argentina plans to triple its number of 5G sites in 2025, aiming to reach nearly 900 active sites by year-end, up from the 300 5G sites already deployed. This aggressive build-out is supported by a significant planned investment level, with the company intending to use around 18% of its revenues in 2025 for CapEx. Including the US$1.2bn acquisition of Telefónica Argentina, total CapEx for 2025 could reach US$2bn.

The investment intensity is already visible in the first quarter of 2025 (1Q25). Consolidated CapEx reached P$176,721 million (or P$220,409 million including right-of-use assets) in 1Q25, representing 13.0% of consolidated revenues for that period. This spending is directed toward both mobile modernization and fixed infrastructure growth, such as FTTH.

The FTTH build-out is a clear high-investment play in a market where fixed broadband penetration was approaching 25% in early 2025. During 2024, Telecom Argentina extended its FTTH networks, reaching 500,000 new homes, and implemented FTTH (Overlay) networks over existing HFC infrastructure, reaching 1.7 million homes. In 1Q25 alone, the company expanded its FTTH network over 1,900 new blocks and added 300 blocks with FTTH overlay. Despite this investment, the fixed internet segment for Telecom (excluding TMA) totaled 4.1 million accesses as of March 31, 2025.

Here's a quick look at the investment and deployment metrics for the high-growth infrastructure areas as of early 2025:

For digital financial services, Telecom Argentina's Personal Pay is noted as having successfully established itself in the competitive digital wallet space. However, without specific market share data against rivals like MercadoLibre, it remains a Question Mark, consuming cash for growth in a market where the overall Argentina Telecoms Market is projected to reach approximately $10 billion USD in 2025.

In the content space, the traditional Pay TV segment, which OTT services directly challenge, shows modest growth or decline. Telecom's TV subscribers (excluding TMA) were 3.1 million in 1Q25, a +0.7% increase year-over-year. Furthermore, the company's Premium subscriptions stood at 1.2 million in 1Q25, showing a decrease of -1.1% compared to 1Q24. This pressure from streaming and OTT services necessitates heavy investment in content and user acquisition to maintain relevance, fitting the Question Mark profile.

The overall financial picture shows high investment needs: consolidated revenues in 1H25 were P$3,357,004 million, a 44.4% year-over-year increase, largely due to the TMA acquisition. Still, the net result for 1H25 was a net loss of P$75,554 million, contrasting with a profit of P$1,197,930 million in 1H24, driven by unfavorable net financial results. This cash consumption for growth initiatives, like 5G and FTTH, while the core business faces digital substitution, defines the Question Mark challenge for Telecom Argentina S.A. (TEO).