Vivo ( Portuguese for 'Live', as in Live Broadcasting, or 'Alive'), known as Vivo Brazil, is a brand of Telefônica Brasil, a subsidiary of

Telefónica , S.A. () is a Spanish multinational telecommunications company with registered office and headquarters located in two different places, both in Madrid, Spain. It is one of the largest telephone operators and mobile network providers in the ...

and the largest

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

company in Brazil. It is headquartered in the

Brooklin Novo Brooklin Novo (Portuguese for ''"New Brooklyn"'') is a neighborhood in São Paulo, Brazil. It is delimited by Bandeirantes Avenue, Marginal Pinheiros, and Santo Amaro Avenue in the Itaim Bibi District of the city. It is bordered by the neighbo ...

neighborhood of

São Paulo São Paulo (; ; Portuguese for 'Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul') is the capital of the São Paulo (state), state of São Paulo, as well as the List of cities in Brazil by population, most populous city in Brazil, the List of largest cities in the ...

History

The company was originally formed as part of

Telebrás Telebras is a Brazilian telecommunications company which was the state-owned monopoly telephone system. It was broken up in July 1998 into twelve separate companies, nicknamed the 'Baby Bras' companies, that were auctioned to private bidders. The ...

, the state-owned telecom

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...

at the time. In 1998, Telebrás was demerged and

privatized Privatization (rendered privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation w ...

bought Telesp, the São Paulo division, and rebranded it to Telefónica. On 15 April 2012, all Telefónica services were rebranded again to Vivo, using the same strategy of unifying all its services in a unique brand, like

Movistar Movistar () is a major telecommunications provider owned by Telefónica, operating in Spain and Hispanic American countries. It is the largest provider of landline, broadband, Mobile telephony, mobile services, and pay television (Movistar Plus+ ...

(Hispanic America and Spain) and O₂ (rest of Europe).

Merged companies

The following operators merged to form Vivo: ''Owned by Telefónica'' *Telefónica Celular (

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

Espírito Santo Espírito Santo (; ) is a state in southeastern Brazil. Its capital is Vitória, and its largest city is Serra. With an extensive coastline, the state hosts some of the country's main ports, and its beaches are significant tourist attracti ...

Rio Grande do Sul Rio Grande do Sul (, ; ; "Great River of the South") is a Federative units of Brazil, state in the South Region, Brazil, southern region of Brazil. It is the Federative units of Brazil#List, fifth-most populous state and the List of Brazilian s ...

) *Telebahia Celular (

Bahia Bahia () is one of the 26 Federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region of the country. It is the fourth-largest Brazilian state by population (after São Paulo (state), São Paulo, Mina ...

) *Telergipe Celular (

Sergipe Sergipe (), officially State of Sergipe, is a States of Brazil, state of Brazil. Located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region along the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast of the country, Sergipe is the smallest state in Brazil by geogra ...

) * Telesp Landline (

) ''Owned by Portugal Telecom'' *Telesp Celular (

) *Global Telecom (

Paraná Paraná, Paranã or Parana may refer to: Geology * Paraná Basin, a sedimentary basin in South America Places In Argentina *Paraná, Entre Ríos, a city * Paraná Department, a part of Entre Ríos Province In Brazil *Paraná (state), a state ...

, Santa Catarina) *Norte Brasil Telecom (a.k.a. NBT) ( Amazonas,

Roraima Roraima ( ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil. Located in the country's North Region, it is the northernmost and most geographically and logistically isolated state in Brazil. It is bordered by the state of Pará to the southeast, Amazonas t ...

Pará Pará () is a Federative units of Brazil, state of Brazil, located in northern Brazil and traversed by the lower Amazon River. It borders the Brazilian states of Amapá, Maranhão, Tocantins (state), Tocantins, Mato Grosso, Amazonas (Brazilian st ...

Amapá Amapá (; ) is one of the 26 federative units of Brazil, states of Brazil. It is in the North Region, Brazil, North Region of Brazil. It is Federative units of Brazil#List, the second-least populous state and the eighteenth-largest state by area ...

Maranhão Maranhão () is a States of Brazil, state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of and it is divided into 217 municipalities. Clockwise from north, it ...

) ''Acquired by the joint venture'' *TCO Celular (

Goiás Goiás () is a Brazilian States of Brazil, state located in the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region. Goiás borders the Federal District (Brazil), Federal District and the states of (from north clockwise) Tocantins, Bahia, Minas Ge ...

, the

Federal District A federal district is a specific administrative division in one of various federations. These districts may be under the direct jurisdiction of a federation's national government, as in the case of federal territory (e.g., India, Malaysia), or the ...

Acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

Tocantins Tocantins () is one of the 26 states of Brazil. It is the newest state, formed in 1988 and encompassing what had formerly been the northern two-fifths of the state of Goiás. Tocantins covers and had an estimated population of 1,496,880 in 2014 ...

Mato Grosso Mato Grosso ( – ) is one of the states of Brazil, the List of Brazilian states by area, third largest by area, located in the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West region. The state has 1.66% of the Brazilian population and is responsible ...

Mato Grosso do Sul Mato Grosso do Sul ( ) is one of Federative units of Brazil, Brazil's 27 federal units, located in the southern part of the Central-West Region, Brazil, Central-West Region, bordering five Brazilian states: Mato Grosso (to the north), Goiás and ...

) * Telemig Celular (

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 Brazilian census, 2022 census. Located in ...

) ''New operations in the Northeast region'' *Vivo (

Ceará Ceará (, ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. It is the List of Brazilian states by population, eighth-largest Brazilian State by ...

Alagoas Alagoas () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region. It borders: Pernambuco (N and NW); Sergipe (S); Bahia (SW); and the Atlantic Ocean (E). Its capital is ...

Rio Grande do Norte Rio Grande do Norte (, , ) is one of the states of Brazil. It is located in the northeastern region of the country, forming the northeasternmost tip of the South American continent. The name literally translates as "Great Northern River", refe ...

Pernambuco Pernambuco ( , , ) is a States of Brazil, state of Brazil located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast region of the country. With an estimated population of 9.5 million people as of 2024, it is the List of Brazilian states by population, ...

Paraíba Paraíba ( , ; ) is a states of Brazil, state of Brazil. It is located in the Brazilian Northeast, and it is bordered by Rio Grande do Norte to the north, Ceará to the west, Pernambuco to the south and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Paraíba i ...

Piauí Piauí ( ) is one of the states of Brazil, located in the country's Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region. The state has 1.6% of the Brazilian population and produces 0.7% of the Brazilian GDP. Piauí has the shortest coastline of any coas ...

), since October 2008.

Vivo brand

The Vivo brand was launched on 13 April 2003, as a

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

service provider. It's the largest provider in Brazil with over 76 million users. It originated from the

merger Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are business transactions in which the ownership of a company, business organization, or one of their operating units is transferred to or consolidated with another entity. They may happen through direct absorpt ...

of several Brazilian mobile phone operations under a

joint-venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acces ...

owned equally by

Portugal Telecom Altice Portugal S.A. (formerly known as PT Portugal) is the largest telecommunications service provider in Portugal. Since 2 June 2015 the company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Altice, a multinational cable and telecommunications company ...

(PT) and Spain's

. Until 2006, the group was composed of six holding companies which, as announced in November 2005, merged into a single holding company, "Vivo Participações". The operation was concluded on 22 February 2006. In July 2010, Telefónica bought PT's shares. Today Vivo operates an

UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a 3G mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. UMTS uses Wideband Code Division Multiple Access, wideband code-division multiple access (W-CDMA) radio access technolog ...

, 3G networks and bands 1, 7, 3, 28 4G

LTE LTE may refer to: Science and technology * LTE (telecommunication) (Long-Term Evolution), a mobile telephony standard ** LTE Advanced, an enhancement ** LTE Advanced Pro, a further enhancement * Compaq LTE, a line of laptop computers * Leukotrie ...

in most Brazilian cities. Initially, the network was based on analog AMPS (

IS-95 cdmaOne, most often simply referred to as CDMA, is a 2G digital cellular technology. It was the commercial name for Interim Standard 95 (IS-95), a technology that was developed by Qualcomm and later adopted as a standard by the Telecommunica ...

) and parts (resulting from acquisition of other companies), using TDMA ( IS-136). These were all converted to

GSM The Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) is a family of standards to describe the protocols for second-generation (2G) digital cellular networks, as used by mobile devices such as mobile phones and Mobile broadband modem, mobile broadba ...

beginning in 2006, when, after years being the only

CDMA Code-division multiple access (CDMA) is a channel access method used by various radio communication technologies. CDMA is an example of multiple access, where several transmitters can send information simultaneously over a single communicatio ...

network. For some years,

and

networks coexisted. In the second half of the 2000s, the CDMA network was gradually converted to

CDMA2000 CDMA2000 (also known as C2K or IMT Multi‑Carrier (IMT‑MC)) is a family of 3G mobile technology standards for sending voice, data, and signaling data between mobile phones and cell sites. It is developed by 3GPP2 as a backwards-compatib ...

in the major cities. The CDMA network was discontinued in November 2012. In 2012, the fixed services in the state of

were rebranded from Telefónica to Vivo, unifying the brands for fixed and mobile services since then.

Vivo brands

Vivo owns the following brands: * Vivo Móvel (mobile service) ** Vivo 4G ( 4G

) ** Vivo 4G Plus (4G

LTE Advanced Pro LTE Advanced, also named or recognized as LTE+, LTE-A or 4G+, is a 4G mobile cellular communication standard developed by 3GPP as a major enhancement of the Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. Three technologies from the LTE-Advanced tool-kit ...

) ** Vivo 5G ( 5G) * Vivo Fixo (landline service, formerly ''Telefônica'') ** Vivo Internet (

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over Copper wire, copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem ...

broadband, formerly ''Speedy'') ** Vivo Internet Plus (Cable broadband, formerly ''Ajato'' and ''Vivo Speedy'', being discontinued) ** Vivo Fibra (

FTTH Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for last mile telecommunications. As fiber opt ...

broadband, as of 4Q2020, +50% of broadband users) *

Vivo TV Vivo TV is a Brazilian pay television provider, owned by the Spanish telecommunications company Telefónica, through its subsidiary in the country, Vivo. It provides digital cable, satellite and IPTV services. Grupo Abril's TVA was founded in 1 ...

(initially

satellite television Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location.ITU Radio Regulations, Section IV. Radio Stations and Systems ...

, DTH, formerly ''Telefônica TV Digital'') ** Vivo TV (

satellite TV Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location.ITU Radio Regulations, Section IV. Radio Stations and Systems ...

) ** Vivo TV Plus (

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

, formerly ''TVA'', being discontinued as of 4Q2020) ** Vivo TV Fibra (FTTH television service)

References

External links