According to a report released by Cisco, broadband connections in Argentina have increased an amazing 35% during 2008.

The finding comes from the 7th edition of the Cisco Broadband Barometer, which is issued every 6 months by Cisco and IDC.

Mobile Broadband also registered strong growth of 50.4 % during the second half of 2008, demonstrating that this type of access is becoming popular in Argentina.

The penetration of broadband connections per 100 inhabitants reached 8.8 percent in December 2008, compared to 7.8 percent from the previous Barometer edition; positioning the country in the first place of Latin America in broadband penetration with Chile. Uruguay is in the second place with 7.6 percent. Even though the growth was significant, compare to Korea with 31 percent there is a big gap between developed countries and emerging ones.

The report revealed a few other interesting findings:

• • In the analysis by market segment, home connectivity representing 94 percent of the fixed connection total, while businesses account for 6 percent.
• • The distribution of mobile connections per market segment reveals the dominance of “residential” over “business” connectivity. The former accounts for 76 percent of connections, while the latter accounts for 24 percent.
• • As for the distribution per region, the province of Buenos Aires represents 55 percent of all mobile connections and 45 percent in the rest of the country.
• • The distribution of fixed connections per download speed grew in the ‘1 Mbps to 1.99 Mbps’ category. It went from 45 percent of the total connections in June 2008 to 47.3 percent in December of the same year, due to new offers by the service providers.

This is the distribution of people who access the Internet via Broadband (this includes home and work) from the Livra’s Panel:

People that access the Internet via Broadband in Livra’s Online Panel

Source: Livra Panels Incidence File May 09

More info  on the Cisco report here:

Broadband Connections Increase 35 Percent in Argentina During 2008 [PR Domain]