The number of mobile phones in circulation in Brazil rose 1% in September from the month before to reach 166.1 million, according to figures released Thursday by telecommunications regulator Anatel.

Net additions totaled 1.58 million in September, down from 2.6 million in August, reflecting less aggressive marketing and promotions strategies among the main players.

Vivo Participacoes SA (VIV) maintained market leadership with a 29.4% share of subscriptions in September, marginally up from 29.38% in August. Vivo is jointly owned by Spain's Telefonica SA (TEF) and Portugal Telecom SGPS SA (PT).

Vivo's decision to become more aggressive in selling SIM cards without handsets is starting to have an impact, and the company accounted for 31.5% of net additions last month.

"However, it is still early to assess subscriber quality," said Vera Rossi, telecom analyst at Morgan Stanley in a research report. "Our main questions concern the level of ARPUs (average revenue per user) and the credit quality of these new customers."

Claro, the local unit of Mexico's America Movil SA (AMX), remained in second with its share stable at 25.4%.

A decline in Claro's net additions is mainly due to its less-aggressive marketing strategy in the last few months, said Rossi.

TIM Participacoes (TCU) saw its market share remain stable at 23.8%. TIM is the local unit of Telecom Italia SpA (TI).

Fourth-placed mobile-phone operator Oi (TNE) registered a share of 20.93%.

-By Alastair Stewart and Rogerio Jelmayer, Dow Jones Newswires; 5511-2847-4521; rogerio.jelmayer@dowjones.com
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