2025 was such a strong year for EM Telcos with the result that while remaining bullish we thought it was not plausible that 2026 would be as strong. Yet if anything the year has started better than 2025, with our picks up 18% ytd already, and up 113% since the start of 2025.
The resumption of pricing power is one of the key drivers of the rally in EM Telcos and perhaps the area where consensus is most sceptical. In this note we analyse which markets have the greatest potential for sustained pricing power, looking at key issues: affordability and regulatory and competitive structure.
Our portfolio of Top Picks has started 2026 strongly, up 6% ytd already. This month we make no changes to our top picks. This note also includes key news & other thoughts, to try to help investors generate alpha within the EM Telco space.
Q4 was a solid quarter for the Brazilian market, despite a small slowdown in revenue and EBITDA growth. Claro outperformed peers again from an MSR and an EBITDA growth standpoint, Vivo was the outperformer from a KPI perspective. Prepaid remained under pressure and will likely remain challenged this year. However, postpaid continued to trend well.
Rounding off the reporting season, Vivo reported a somewhat mixed set of Q4 results. Revenue came in slightly ahead of consensus expectations and EBITDA slightly beat too, helped by $386m of contingencies reversal booked in “Other”. Excluding this, EBITDA missed expectations. Group service revenue growth was in line with the previous quarters, supported by a nice performance in fixed while MSR saw a deceleration in trends.
TIM Brasil has approved a new share buyback plan, up to R$1bn (US$ 173m), which represents a significant uptick in overall shareholder remuneration. This is another positive development following its new medium term guidance. With a net cash position and 14% 2025 FCFE yield, the stock is a compelling Buy and represents one of our Top Picks in EM with a R$ 22 price target.
Fundamentals continue to look pretty good to us in Latin America, with market repair continuing across wireless markets and further consolidation likely. Macro / political risk is probably the biggest issue. We upgrade TIM Brasil and Vivo to Buy. Price targets rise to BRL22 and BRL66 (from BRL19 and BRL57 ) respectively.
In a separate note published last week we introduced the NSR GEM-Top 8. However, many of the stocks in that list are not liquid and so, given the tailwinds we now see in the Telco industry we introduce a second list – the GEM Telco & Towers Liquid Compounders; large cap, well-managed telcos in attractive markets at cheap valuations that are likely to generate market-beating returns over time. These are the best large cap investments in the Global EM Telco & Towers space we think.
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