The iPhone hype: coming soon to Latin America
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 tell the difference. So far only coverage, which is closely correlated to size and market share (such as the case of America Movil in Colombia) seems to be the main criteria used by subscribers to tell them apart.
In our opinion, all VAS services launched in the last couple of years seem to be mainly with the sole purpose of putting a check mark in the "to do" list, with no real strategy behind it. Services such as Instant Messaging, Ring Back Tones and MMS are now standard services in operations across the region, yet usage is very low and it does not seem they are significant contributors to revenue. When these services are not actually part of a solid strategy aimed at increasing usage and revenue, they tend to disappear in the mind of the end user.
The iPhone represents a great opportunity to work on messaging strategies, data usage and even video calls, with the impending launch of the 3G iPhone later this year.
The question is, will operators in Latin America take advantage of this opportunity?
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 tell the difference. So far only coverage, which is closely correlated to size and market share (such as the case of America Movil in Colombia) seems to be the main criteria used by subscribers to tell them apart.
In our opinion, all VAS services launched in the last couple of years seem to be mainly with the sole purpose of putting a check mark in the "to do" list, with no real strategy behind it. Services such as Instant Messaging, Ring Back Tones and MMS are now standard services in operations across the region, yet usage is very low and it does not seem they are significant contributors to revenue. When these services are not actually part of a solid strategy aimed at increasing usage and revenue, they tend to disappear in the mind of the end user.
The iPhone represents a great opportunity to work on messaging strategies, data usage and even video calls, with the impending launch of the 3G iPhone later this year.
The question is, will operators in Latin America take advantage of this opportunity?
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