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As the year comes to an end, it's a good idea to reflect on the past and learn from our experience, good or bad. With this in mind, I compiled a list of the good, the bad and the really bad news and analysis from the mobile industry in Latin America that I blogged about during 2008, with some additional comments and reflections. Enjoy! The good!!!! America Movil launches the iPhone - after much speculation and anticipation, America Movil formally announced in early May that they were selected to distribute the iPhone in Latin America. America Movil's VAS team moved quickly and successfully launched exactly one year after the iPhone was first launched in the USA by AT&T. Why is this GOOD? This was a complex deployment that was done with a very tight schedule. The successful launch of the iPhone in Latin America was possible thanks to a strong team; Corporate VAS in Mexico, together with local VAS Managers and Operations Managers in the region showed that they have wha

Rob Pegoraro, blogger and author of Fast Forward, the Washington's Post Personal Technology column, wrote yesterday about the new BlackBerry models (see BlackBerrys Again Get Sleeker but Can't Challenge iPhone ). I like Pegoraro's analysis on the new devices, it is very detailed and comprehensive, however his comparison to the iPhone, misses the point entirely. I have written extensively about how the iPhone is breaking new ground and challenging traditional handset vendors and operators to rethink their strategy. A quick look at how big players have responded since the iPhone was shown to the world at MacWorld 2007 is proof enough: Nokia recently unveiled its flagship phone for 2009, the N97, a few days ago and of course, RIM's new devices include touch screen devices that do mimic the iPhone user interface. Experience however, has shown that the BlackBerry VS iPhone challenge exists mostly in the minds of analysts, not in the marketplace. BlackBerry has positioned it

A quick look at how the handset industry has changed after the iPhone was first introduced at Macworld 2007, confirms that visual interfaces are becoming a de facto standard for mobile devices: Just a few months after the iPhone launch by AT&T, Verizon launched the Voyager, made by LG. In early 2008, Sprint announced at CTIA the launch of the Samsung Instinct. More recently, just a few weeks ago, Research in Motion introduced the first touch screen Blackberry. Finally, Nokia, introduced its flagship phone for 2009, the N97, a few days ago. These are just a few of the many example of new touch screen devices by major handset manufacturers. At first instance it might seem like iPhone clones are flooding the market, but I strongly believe they are more than that; they are part of a growing trend that focuses on user experience. While it can be argued that Apple's iPhone did not actually create these innovations, some of which had been around for several years before its release,

Even before the economic meltdown, in the last three years operators operators worldwide were developing more aggressive business case guidelines for new and existing services. Operators such as Telefonica, Vodafone and Millicom today have imposed business case guidelines that are more strict than ever before. To comply, VAS managers have followed the strategy of evaluating subscribers and deprovisioning services from low usage segments. We have seen this happen over and over again with operators in Europe, Latin America and Asia. Deprovisioning subscribers from low usage segments looks good on paper because it makes it seem that operators are serving the same or even a larger subscriber base with lower CAPEX. The problem with this is that operators are playing with financial formulas instead of increasing revenues. In addition, many times operators do not provide an alternative service for these segments. While new models for commercial agreements that are not based on a per subscrib

Yesterday I attended a panel discussion titled "Mobile Advertising - Industry Revenue Enhancer or Distraction?" with key industry players (information below) who shared their experience and insight on the current status and potential of mobile advertising. The discussion centered around the fact that while mobile advertising is getting a lot of attention in the mobile industry it has not yet consolidated as a significant revenue generator across the value chain, for operators and advertisers. The fact that the panel was made up by vendors allowed us to get a clear picture of their perspective of the industry. Interestingly, the panel spent more time discussing a question from the audience regarding ROI and metrics than on anything else. Their input was valuable and insightful, however, it seems from the long explanations that this is an issue that is a long way from being resolved. Just like other new players before them, mobile advertising vendors talked about how the Inte

The current world recession is leading businesses and consumers to curtail spending, which is expected to affect growth and revenues during 2009. Every day we hear about how operators are preparing to face this economic downturn with layoffs and by reducing CAPEX and OPEX; just last week, AT&T announced plans to cut 4% of its work force ( Cellular News ); Sprint Nextel is also expected to announce job cuts in 2009 ( Cellular News ). In Latin America, Millicom recently announced that 2009 CAPEX will be “substantially lower” than in 2008 and Telefonica stated last week that the region will continue to grow, but at a slower rate than previously expected. Despite the current economic downturn, there are opportunities operators have to introduce new services with minimal CAPEX. By analyzing end user behavior, traditional services such as Voice Mail, SMS and MMS can be repackaged and launched as new services, leveraging existing VAS infrastructure and reducing CAPEX normally required f

With mobile penetration around the world reaching saturation, and the growth rate for traditional services flattening, operators are looking for new options to increase revenue. However, traditional services (voice, SMS) continue to be the main revenue generators for operators and there are still many interesting options to continue milking the cash cow. Services such as Ring Back Tones, MMS and Push e mail, when they were first introduced, created huge expectations that have not been delivered. In addition, operators get distracted by these new services and tend to overlook the basics. Voice mail, for example, is still the main call completion service and SMS continues to be the main messaging service worldwide; it is expected this trend will continue for the next few years. Operators can benefit from looking at options that sit on top of both services, to revitalize them and target missed opportunities. One of the key advantages to leveraging voice and SMS is that they can be used to

We recently posted about Millicom's success in Latin America, where it is positioned as a reliable operator with strong customer loyalty. The Latin American market continues to grow and Millicom is benefitting from this, but it has also managed to gain market share from the two giants in the region, America Movil and Telefonica Movistar. The question is how is Millicom doing this? Both heavyweights have consolidated their leadership in Latin America; they compete head to head in most of the region (America Movil operates in 16 countries, Telefonica Movistar in 13) and both surpassed the 100 million mark a couple of years ago. Both operators seem intent to compete by continually trying to differentiate themselves with new products and services. However, in most cases, it only takes a few months for the other to catch up. Most recently, both operators were ready to kill each other over the iPhone. America Movil got a headstart but in the end, Telefonica was able to mitigate any possi

We recently posted our thoughts on remarks made by Marc Beuls, President and CEO of Millicom, at the Morgan Stanley 8th Annual Technology, Media and Telecoms Conference in Barcelona. Even though Millicom continues its impressive growth in Latin America, Mr. Beuls made it clear that that CAPEX for 2009 will be “substantially lower” than in 2008. It comes as no surprise that other major players in the region will follow a similar strategy in 2009. Mr. José María Álvarez Pallete, General Manager of Telefónica Latinoamérica, stated last week at CEDE (V Congreso de la Confederación Española de Directivos y Ejecutivos) that the region will continue growing in subscribers and revenues (source Telesemana ), but he expects a slowdown in 2009, given the economic crisis. Mr. Álvarez Pallete, however, made it clear that this won't be a dramatic slowdown but rather a slower growth rate than previously expected and that Latin America is the area where the company expects to grow in the coming y

This is a follow up to my recent post on a Cellular News article about the success of Telecom Argentina has had increasing SMS usage. I stated that this might indicate the need to pay more attention to other messaging services such as MMS, Instant Messaging, Personal Messaging as well as other data services. From the usage statistics we have from Pyramid Research (March 2008), we can see that SMS revenue for the Argentinean market represents more than 85% of total messaging revenues. While this is expected to change over time, the numbers we have clearly reflect that SMS is still the main source of revenue from messaging. In early 2007, Telecom Personal launched an initiative to evaluate Mobile Instant Messaging, following Telefonica Movistar's agreement with MSN, which was discussed in this blog (see here ). Telecom Personal went through the process of issuing an RFP and evaluating and selecting a vendor but in the end decided not to launch the service. I believe that was a missed

As mobile operators finish completion of their budgets for 2009 and approach the holiday season, vendors anxiously await what will be one of the toughest years since the telecom downturn from the late 90's/2000. An interesting insight into what to expect for 2009 comes from Marc Beuls, President and CEO of Millicom, who presented to investors at the Morgan Stanley 8th Annual Technology, Media and Telecoms Conference in Barcelona just a week ago. Mr Beuls’ presentation has been posted on Millicom’s website at www.millicom.com and includes updated information on expected capital expenditures, cashflow and margins (see press release here ). Millicom continues its impressive growth with outstanding results; it reports a 71% in Honduras from Q3 07, 39% in Guatemala and 29% in El Salvador. Millicom operates in Latin American markets that are still growing but has gained market share from its main competitors in Central America, America Movil and Telefonica Movistar. Millicom is now the

Cellular News (link to story here ) reports that "... In its third quarter results for 2008 Telecom Argentina’s Personal unit recorded its fourth successive year-on-year increase in quarterly average ARPU – an impressive result in a market which now has a penetration rate of 104%". As we have mentioned here before, SMS represents for most countries in Latin America up to 90% of data revenue. SMS is a mature product that maintains its status as cash cow, however, the fact that this service is profitable and successful takes attention away from the fact that up until now, operators in Latin America have not been successful with the introduction of new services that effectively contribute to the bottom line. Recently we talked about how the recent launch of the iPhone in Latin America by Movistar and America Movil is shaping to be a missed opportunity (see here and here ) as they are NOT approaching it as an opportunity to increase data usage but rather treating at as just anot

Voice Mail and SMS have been in a mature stage for several years now; growth in most markets has slowed down and until recently, they kept the same form and functionality they had since they were first introduced years ago. Both services, however, remain the bread and butter of VAS services. In most markets (the USA being a notable exception) Voice Mail is the largest VAS contributor to revenue for mobile operators; SMS in some cases accounts for up to 90% of data revenue. This alone justifies paying attention to recent developments that are breathing new life into these two services by dramatically improving the user experience with visual interfaces. The best example of this is the iPhone, which introduced to the market visual applications for both services. Visual Voice Mail had been around for several years, but it was not until the iPhone was introduced that it got the attention of mobile operators. While it can be argued that the iPhone reflects a shift in users’ expectations as

This is a follow up to my last post about the relevance of Voice to Text for Voice Mail vendors. One of the main challenges operators face when introducing new value added services to their offering is defining the target segment and making sure these services will attract a large enough group of subscribers. A compelling business case is not the only factor that operators will use to determine whether or not to launch a new service. However, VAS managers are under increased pressure to raise ARPU and the effort required to launch new services will hardly be worth their time if they cannot show a significant contribution to the bottom line. At first glance, the business case for voice to text delivery of voice mail messages may seem difficult, in particular for Tier 2 and Tier X operators. The cost of transfering messages -mainly because of costs associated to ensuring the quality of transcription- makes it seem that this is a service that can only be offered to specific segments, such

We have discussed previously (see here and here ) the huge potential and appeal Voice to Text has and the fast penetration it has seen worldwide, including the recent launch in Latin America by Movistar Chile (see Spinvox press release here ). Ther key element that seems to be missing, however, is the lack of enthusiasm Voice Mail vendors have shown for this service. Voice to text delivers voice mail messages via SMS in text format, so integration to the Voice Mail platform is a key component. We have seen strong marketing efforts by Spinvox and Nuance, and operators worldwide are responding. Voice mail vendors, on the other hand, seem to be in a responsive mode, collaborating with integration efforts but not really pushing the service. Perhaps the single notable exception to this might be the agreement Nuance signed with Comverse, who is the leading Voice Mail vendor wolrdwide with >50% market share, but even that was an initiative led by Nuance, not Comverse. Given the fact that v

Following an earlier post (see here ) about the potential VISUAL VOICE MAIL for iPhone has to impact subscriber data usage, I will be posting excerpts of an article I wrote for Convergencia Latina to expand on this topic. After more than one year of its launch, the iPhone has shown that traditional services such as voicemail and text messaging can greatly benefit from the use of visual interfaces that improve the user experience [1] . Acording to M:Metrics, the iPhone is already the most popular device for accessing news and information on the mobile Web [2] : 85 percent of iPhone users browse the mobile Web 30.9 percent of iPhone owners watched mobile TV or video, versus a 4.6 market average, and more than double the rate for all smartphone users. Usage of social networking is also popular among iPhone users: 49.7 percent accessed a social networking site in January, nearly twelve times the market average. Improving the user experience can increase voicemail usage, which should reflec

This is an article I published recently, related to an important topic which is CALL COMPLETION in Latin America. I have written about this topic before, as a reference please see the links below: VoiceMail 2.0: Coming soon to Latin America? Call Completion: Movistar Argentina launches "Quieren Hablarte" service Article summary: In Latin America, average MOU and Voice ARPU continue to decline due to increased penetration in lower income segments. At the same time, average mobile penetration for the region is near 50%. As the Latin American mobile market enters a more mature stage, operators will have to find new ways of generating revenue.Increasing call completion is an option that allows improved network efficiency and can generate significant revenues from voice.

This is a follow up to my post from October regarding the iPhone launch in Latin America (see here ). The battle between America Movil and Telefonica Movistar was settled after Apple signed with Movistar; we expected this to happen since the official announcement from America Movil did not mention exclusivity. As we know now, Mexico will be the only country where only one operator will have exclusivity, at least until 2009. In its rush to launch the iPhone, Telefonica Movistar did not launch Visual Voice Mail, unlike Claro / America Movil, who did include Visual Voice Mail, except for Comcel Colombia. How relevant can this be to the end user and to the overall strategy for both America Movil and Telefonica Movistar? As we have pointed out here before, the big risk for the iPhone in Latin America is to be just passing fad. Operators have the opportunity to make a significant impact with this device in terms of data usage, which so far has not been significant in the region (except maybe

Interestingly, I found a blog with the same topic I just wrote about (Voice to Text VS Visual Voice Mail) posted yesterday so I thought I'd provide the link. Interesting stuff and it seems we agree on the challenge Voice to Text poses to Visual Voice Mail. Link to blog post at here .... iPhone SpinVox Users: Visual vs Visible? Recently, me and a couple of the guys here at SV HQ started thinking about Visual Voicemail on the iPhone.Y’all know what Visual Voicemail is right? That funky little feature that everyone raved about when it was first announced etc?Yeah, that.

Several operators in the Americas region are launching voice to text services. We have heard from Movistar Chile (see press release here ) as well as other operators both in Latin America and North America who are getting ready to launch. Visual voice mail (as commented here before) has gained a lot of traction with the launch of Apple's iPhone, however, I believe that voice to text has the potential to challenge VVM and become a key application in what is now known as Next Generation Voice Mail. The main vendors for this service are rushing to claim territory, 2007 and 2008 seem to be the big year for companies like Nuance and Spinvox launching the service with major operators A year or so ago when I looked at this service for the first time, I found skepticisim with analysts and industry leaders regarding whether this service had the potential to make a significant impact with operators as it was thought to be too expensive and the target market too small. After listening to oper

Following a fierce battle with America Movil for exclusivity in the launch of the iPhone in Latin America, both America Movil and Telefonica were able sign an agreement with Apple. America Movil was able to leverage the fact that they were first to sign with Apple and Telefonica Movistar, trailing behind, decided to rush to the market in Chile and Argentina with minimal preparation. We were very surprised to confirm that the iPhone was not launched by Telefonica Movistar with all services -mainly visual voice mail- just to be able to have the same launch date as Claro (America Movil). Not only is it very unsual that Apple allows this -we know of no other region where this has happened- but the potential for increasing data usage and revenue seems to be completely bypassed. As we mentioned here before , the iPhone represents a breakthrough product with high potential for increasing data revenues and repositioning traditional services such as SMS and Voice Mail. For example, despite not

This is a follow up to our last post from June! We took a long break but are back with more news and analaysis. It has been more than a month since the iPhone was first launched in Latin America, after much anticipation and a fierce battle between Telefonica and America Movil (see links here and here ). Now we hear that other major operators, as we anticipated here , are preparing for a possible iPhone launch, including TIM Brazil and Telecom Personal Argnetina. It is still early to evaluate results since the first launch (Telcel Mexico in July, Argentina and Chile in August) was only a few months ago, but it seems the rush from Telefonica Movistar to sell the iPhone might spoil the market. Moe on this in our next post ....

America Movil and Telefonica are the two giant competitors with presence in most of the region. However, there are other players in Latin America who hold up their own, such as Telecom Personal Argentina, TIM Brazil, Entel PCS and of course the Millicom group, who has become the third largest in the region and actually is the market leader in several of the countries it operates. Operators like Personal Argentina, TIM Brazil and Entel PCS have positioned themselves as leaders and innovators with new services and with a larger percentage of postpaid customers than the average. Their client mix also has a higher ARPU than its competitors. In other words, they have traditionally been the operators who targets the ideal demographic group for the iPhone. It will be interesting to see how they respond, given the fact that in just one year the iPhone has launched in several countries, the learning curve is not as steep as it was for operators like Verizon Wireless and Sprint in the USA.

Yesterday Telefonica confirmed it finally reached an agreement with Apple to distribute the iPhone in 16 countries, including its operations in all of Latin America except for Mexico. This confirms the rumors that America Movil did not have exclusive rights, and now the iPhone will be available in several countries by two operators. Italy was the first country to have this type of agreement. Telefonica already sells the phone in the UK and Ireland through its O2 unit, where it has exclusive distribution rights. Now, it will add the Czech Republic, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela. Out of these countries, only Venezuela was not included in the America Movil agreement since it has no presence in that country. In Venezuela, Telefonica is the largest operator. Note by Reuters and other sources.

From Reuters, a little bit more information though basically the same we reported earlier today: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0720230520080507 America Movil to sell iPhone across Latin America By Chris Aspin MEXICO CITY, May 7 (Reuters) - America Movil (AMXL.MX: Quote , Profile , Research ) said on Wednesday it would sell Apple Inc's (AAPL.O: Quote , Profile , Research ) iPhone across Latin America this year, a deal that could extend its lead in the region over Telefonica (TEF.MC: Quote , Profile , Research ). Mexico-based America Movil, which operates in 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as the United States, did not disclose financial details. It did not say if it was an exclusive accord.

News sources in Brazil today confirm that Mexican Telephony group America Movil officially announced that they were selected to distribute the iPhone in Latin America, including Brazil. The news does not provide a launch date but confirms that the iPhone will be available in Latin America in 2008 ( iPhone should arrive to Brazil in 2008 , May 7 2008).

Big news from several sources including Cellular News : In a very short statement, Vodafone announced that it has secured an agreement to launch Apple's iPhone in ten countries. "Later this year, Vodafone customers in Australia , the Czech Republic , Egypt , Greece , Italy , India , Portugal , New Zealand , South Africa and Turkey will be able to purchase the iPhone for use on the Vodafone network." Interestingly, TIM Italia also announced that they will offer the iPhone, making that country the first to offer the handset with multiple operators. We are still waiting for the official announcement regarding Latin America. With the Vodafone agreement in multiple countries, which apparently Apple was hesitant to do, we can now expect something similar from America Movil and Telcel. America Movil has 16 operations in the region including the largest operator in Latin America, Telcel Mexico. Neither TIM, Vodafone or the last announcement before these two, Rogers Canada, have g

It has been almost a year since the launch of the iPhone in the USA and only a few months since its introduction to the European maret. In this short period of time we have seen AT&T and Apple play with the pricing of the handset. Pricing for the service itself has not changed except for an additional package not offered in the beginning. In contrast, the European market sales of the device have not lived to expectations which shouldn't be surprising considering the price of the handset. The US and European markets offer interesting lessons for pricing the iPhone in Latin America: Both Apple and AT&T claim that the iPhone is selling in the U.S. up to expectations but overseas is a different matter . Everything seems to indicate the price is too high for the European market. Latin America is a low ARPU region but end users do not hesitate to buy high end devices. However, pricing the handset higher than a laptop is probably a big mistake. The number of users who are willing

The big news this week was that Rogers finally made an official announcement that they will have the iPhone exclusive in Canada (from Cellular News ). This is not news and apparently even though the company is not yet ready to give a launch date, they had to yield to the pressure since it was known they had been selected by Apple a while ago. The company made a brief statement through Ted Rogers, President and CEO: "We're thrilled to announce that we have a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to Canada later this year. We can't tell you any more about it right now, but stay tuned." This makes it official although he did not give any indication as to launch date. We are now wondering when we will hear from Latin American operators. Last time we checked, the battle was on between Telefonica and America Movil for the exclusivity in the region, with strong rumors for both of them. I am inclined to think it will be America Movil, or at least Telcel for Mexico, given the si

This week we reported on the strong rumors surruounding the launch of a 3G version of the iPhone. Wall Street Journal tech columnist Walt Mossberg was quoted by several sources stating that an iPhone capable of connecting to faster, "3G" mobile networks is coming "in 60 days." Just yesterday, I found a retraction from Mr. Mossberg in the Thursday edition of FierceWireless newsletter. The whole incident is hysterically funny with bloggers like Peter Kafka from the Silicon Alley Insider using the following headline: Mossberg: I Have No Idea When 3G iPhone Is Coming, And I Don't Care. However, Mossberg's crappy attitude and immediate disclaimer say more about the whole situation than his actual statements. Reading between the lines and knowing how Apple reacts when they believe their trade secrets are leaked, it coudn't surpise me that Mr. Mossberg had received a cease and desist or something to that effect from Apple's lawyers. We still believe the 3

From Yahoo! News ( link ) we hear that Apple is expected to launch a high-speed wireless version of iPhone in the second quarter and produce as many as 8 million of the devices in the third quarter, according to Bank of America. "Our latest channel checks point to a significant production build of a 3G iPhone beginning in the month of June after an initial small build in May," said Bank of America analyst Scott Craig. As usual, no word from Apple.

With the leak to El Universal informing us that Telcel will launch the iPhone later this year, we can expect intense competition for the iPhone in the rest of the region. It was clear that Apple was not going to favor a global operator over another one. However, it is unlikely that neither Telefonica nor America Movil were willing to accept this condition, so we can probably expect now that the rest of the America Movil operations will be rushing to prepare for the iPhone launch, beginning with the largest markets: Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. Given this scenario, the other big players in the region, Vivo, Tim Brazil, Personal Argentina will have to come up with a strategy to counter the iPhone hype. This is a good opportunity for operators to revamp their messaging and data strategies. So far, the intense competition between operators in the region has consisted mainly of trying to outdo each other with the end result being a very standard offering, where subscribers cannot really

From Mexican newspaper EL UNIVERSAL ( link ), and also reported by Cellular News ( link ), Telcel has finalized negotiations to launch the iPhone in Mexico. Interestingly, this comes the same week when news sources reported that Telefonica was closing an agreement with Apple for iPhone exclusivity in Latin America. As we reported here before, launching the iPhone with Telcel should be a no brainer, as it is the largest operator in Latin America, with almost 50M subscribers. It will be interesting to see what happens in Brazil and Argentina, who are very likely next in line for the launch of this groundbreaking handset.

From adnmundo.com (link here ) and tusbuscadores.com (link here ) we learn that apparently Telefonica is moving to close negotiations for a regional agreement to launch the iPhone in Latin America. We had mentioned here previously that America Movil and Telefonica were both after the distribution and Apple was negotiating on a per country per operator basis. Apparently this may have changed if the rumors that Apple will join forces with Telefonica are true. We had also mentioned that negotiations with America Movil were not going to be easy and that Apple's conditions, which include revenue share on data revenues, were very likely going to be unacceptable to America Movil. America Movil's leadership in Latin America is precisely what makes negotiations with them extremely difficult and for sure Telefonica will jump at the chance of winning this deal. Even though they have a similar number of subscribers in the region (both topped 100M in the last couple of years), America Mov

We had heard that both America Movil and Telefonica were in talks with Apple to launch the iPhone in Latin America (see here ), with operations in Brazil and Mexico as the prime candidates. It was expected that negotiations were not going to be easy, both companies and particularly America Movil are well known to be tough negotiators. Apple, however, has given no indication that it will change its business strategy, which consists of no exclusive agreements with global operators, which means it can launch with America Movil in Mexico and with Telefonica in Brazil). Apple's strategy is to have separate negotiations country/operator and exclusivity for one single operator per country. In addition, Apple is not backing down from the revenue share deal it has with its current partners, despite tough negotiations in Japan, China and other countries (see here ). It is now reported by Folha Online that Telefonica and Apple are in the final stages of negotiation to launch the iPhone in Bra

Rich Miner, group manager for mobile platforms at Google was at the Emerging Communications Conference last week where he mentioned, after his presentation, that he expects Android-based devices to outpace sales of the popular iPhone (read note by By Richard Martin, InformationWeek here ). Miner, however, stated that the iPhone and Android target different markets. The iPhone is "a single manufacturer, it's targeted at a particular demograph", while "Android is a "complete open-source [software] stack" for mobile devices, not just an operating system". It will be interesting to see if Google will dampen any future iPhone deals; we are still waiting to hear any confirmation about the iPhone launch in Latin America.

Last week Apple released the much expected SDK for the iPhone, allowing thrid party applications to run on the handset. This move (from John O'Brien's Technology Blog MacChat ) will reposition the iPhone in the corporate segment, which up until now has been dominated by RIM's BlackBerry. The iPhone is already the second most popular smartphone after the BlackBerry but up until now it was not a serious contender in the corporate segment. It should be interesting to see how things evolve in Latin America, where just a couple of years ago the BlackBerry was introduced with much hype. Despite being a small niche (in some countries in LA, subscribers are only in the thousands), it has proven to be one of the highest revenue generating handsets for operators worldwide. In Latin America, however, the segment for smartphones is much smaller than in North America or Europe, and targeting this segment with special handsets can be tricky. Such is the case of the BlackBerry. This means

We have talked a lot about Apple's iPhone, who has revolutionized the industry since its introduction in the USA last year. Now comes the "People's Phone", introduced at Barcelona this year, which sits at the opposite end of the spectrum in price and features (see story by the International Herald Tribune ). Spice, an Indian based company, has introduced the greatest innovation since the iPhone: a handset priced at less than $20. The so called digital divide seems to disappear with this innovation. This type of handset should appeal to operators that are reaching to lower income segments as mobile penetration continues to grow and the markets become saturated, or in countries where regulations require operators to provide service to these segments.

While everyone else impatiently waits for Apple to make up their mind about the iPhone, as reported here before (see here and here ), CTI quietly launched their CORREO MULTIMEDIA CTI (CTI Multimedia Mail), which is a great option for deploying Visual Voice Mail to mass market. Even though the service currently is only available to the postpaid segment, this service is part of the Visual Voice Mail offering that seems to be the buzzword not only in Latin America but worldwide thanks to Apple's iPhone. We expect to hear more from operators regarding this service, as we have mentioned here before , the time for an upgraded version of VOICEMAIL is long due and it took an outsider to reinvent the service.

Comverse at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona was selected as a finalist for the 2008 GSMA Global Mobile Award in the Best Mobile Messaging Service category. They showed us not only their iPhone Visual VoiceMail but also other demos for different types of handsets for non iPhone operators and segments. This is probably the single most important breaktrhough innovation in VoiceMail since it was launched. Interestingly, the breakthrough came form an outsider, breaking all the rules to which both operators and handset vendors had played for years. As we have reported here before, there are strong rumors that Telcel Mexico and Claro Brazil are next in line to launch the iPhone. Given the size of the market and the dominance of both operators, it's a non brainer Apple might want to partner with them. The question is, will Venezuela and Argentina also be considered, given the size and importance of both markets. Venezuela, for example, is expected to be similar in size as Brazil for mes

From one of my favorite techie blogs at Salon.com , Farhad Manjoo today posted about Google working together with the city of San Francisco to provide free voice mail to to the city's homeless: "Bless Google for doing something amazing: The company is handing out phone numbers and voice-mail boxes to every homeless person in San Francisco. Folks can sign up for the numbers at shelters across the city. The numbers will be local and personal -- i.e., each person will get a unique 415-area code number that will never expire. The number will ring a voice-mail box that will play a personalized greeting; homeless people can check their messages by dialing in from any phone." Great initiative by Google and SF mayor Gavin Newsom, that others can and should emulate! This idea should be adopted by other cities, surely Verizon and others will be happy to participate in similar initiatives. In Latin America, this reminds me of an initiative by Carlos Slim's TELMEX, the fixed line

Yesterday we posted about Ovum's particpation at Barcelona GSMA and Forrester's Tecnographics Webinar , both focusing on new revenue opportunities for mobile operators: Mobile Advertising (Ovum) and Gen Y's use of interactive media (Forrester Technographics). Pyramid today published a new report titled "Social Networking Goes Mobile", (from the report excerpt) ; this report "assesses the current and future state of mobile social networking, whereby members access their favorite sites using their mobile devices." Both mobile advertising and mobile social networking represent opportunities for operators to introduce new exciting services and increase revenues. A key factor, however, is whether the on line world will enter the mobile arena or whether mobile operators will enter the on line arena, in other words, who will control introduction of new services? Past experience with similar services such Mobile Instant Messaging have shown that operators stand

As a follow up to our previous post addressing Ovum's participation in Barcelona highlighting the rise of mobile on line advertising , I'd like to share with you my thoughts on the Webinar run today by Forrester Resarch. I joined today a Webinar run by Ted Schadler and Jackie Rousseau of Forrester Research. The Webinar, titled A Marketer’s Dream? Connecting with U.S. Gen Y through Interactive Media, provided an interesting view on the way "U.S. adults and Gen Yers (18 – 27 year olds) use and feel about media and advertising in games, mobile devices, Internet video, and rich media." Schadler and Rousseau addressed not only the behavior patterns of Gen Yers as compared to the adult population in general, but also paid special attention to the habits of these segments for the mobile world. An interesting webinar with many takeaways, for now I'd like to emphasize some of Ted Schadler's observations on the challenges facing mobile advertising: Gen Y is the first In

John Delaney and Vincent Poulbere from Ovum bring to our attention how mobile advertising can help operators face their two biggest challenges: declining ARPUs and expanding their reach into media. An interesting initiative by GSMA announced at Barcelona was the creation of a Working Group to define common metrics and measurement processes for mobile advertising. Vodafone, Telefonica, T-Mobile, Orange and 3 are the five members of this group. Ovum mentions other activities at Barcelona that clearly show enthusiasm for bringing advertising into the mobile world such as round table discussions and initiatives by different vendors including Comverse Mobile Advertising Solution, Nokia's Media Network, Openwave's Contextual Advertising and Amdocs' mobile advertising solution. While we applaud their efforts, we should note that operators have still a lot of work ahead to catch up and bring the web to the mobile world. Internet advertising has come a long way but it remains unchar

We are back after a couple of weeks with a lot of news and information, including latest happenings and info from Barcelona .... many new posts coming soon! We have info from the latest trends in the industry and the impact we expect for Latin America.

From UNSTRUNG NEWS ANALYSIS, René Obermann, CEO of Deutsche Telekom AG is quoted stating that even though Europe is not selling as many iPhones as AT&T, the iPhone is helping to drive up mobile data use ( iPhone Data Booms at T-Mobile ). This is interesting news for operators in Latin America interested in launching the iPhone. The unique situation of the US market sometimes makes it difficult to undertand how a certain product, service or strategy might work if launched in Latin America, so looking at European markets, who have alos high prepaid subscribers and similar pricing plans, helps a lot. In Latin America, mobile demand continues to grow (it is expected to surpass 500M subscribers by 2010, according to Pyramid Research) but voice ARPU has been falling for the last five years. Operators are looking at data to offset this fall and the iPhone hype seems to fit in nicely with this strategy. Interestingly, this was also named as a challenge to European operators by the UNSTRUNG

This is a follow up to my previous posts (see here and here ) on the announcements -or lack of- by Apple during Macworld. No 3g iPhone, no new operators, no Latin America, no nothing .... very disappointing! I am still hoping for announcements in the coming weeks, that both Claro Brazil and Telcel Mexico will be the two operators launching the iPhone in Latin America. After all, Apple kept at least one important announcement from Macworld: the launch of the new 16Gb iPhone. As reported by Cellular News : "Apple has launched a new version of the iPhone - with double the internal storage memory. The iPhone now comes in a new 16GB model for US$499 ... Still no sign of the elusive 3G iPhone though." Just last week, the hype was that Apple was losing millions from phones that were unlocked to be used in other networks. From Cellular News: Apple Lost Up to $400 Million in Revenues from Unlocked iPhones : "Analysts believe more than 1 million devices may have been sold and unl

Not sure what to think of the headline in the Newspaper CLARIN highlighting the success of Instant Messaging in Argentina: "One hundred thousand already chatting in their mobile phone: IM has been in service for more than a year" (loosely translated for my readers that do not read Spanish, link here for those that do). I understand the point they are trying to make but somehow, if the news is that the service has been there for ONE YEAR .... so do people in Argentina actually know about the service ... after one year? Anyway, other than the weird headline (blame the editors!), the article is well written and informative, and covers the efforts by both Movistar Argentina and Telecom Personal. However .... we will discuss their statistics later, it is an interesting topic. As we mentioned here before, Movistar Chile and Argentina were the first to sign an agreement with MSN, leading the region with these services. Movistar, however, launched a WAP version of the service using M

The initiative by Brazilian Operators together with GSMA is groundbreaking in Latin America, not only because of the imminent launch of Personal Instant Messaging in the region with all six operators offering interconnection but also for the fact that these operators are sitting together in a work group to define a product, evaluate vendors and complete a through study before launch. We expect that this will delay even more the launch of the service, which has been evaluated by operators like TIM, VIVO and Claro for at least two years now. However, the approach of this work group, led by Ms Paloma Vivanco of GSMA, will increase the likelihood of a succesful launch and service penetration. The work group met recently in Rio to discuss with different vendors their solutions. Among the vendors presenting were market leaders Acision, Colibira and Comverse, as well as an up and coming Uruguayan company, INI. The only other big IM vendor that always seems to be absent from Latin America init