The iPhone in Latin America - a lost opportunity?
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 for Venezuela and even there, approximately 90% of data revenue comes from SMS).
Treating the iPhone as just another device is a lost opportunity. We have looked at the service packages that both America Movil and Telefonica Movistar offer and I even had the opportunity to talk to sales representatives and even though it seems they have made a huge effort to launch the service, I have my doubts about whether operators are actually working on a strategy to increase data usage. After all, charging for the service may look good on paper but if it does not really affect subscriber usage it might fail in the long run.
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 for Venezuela and even there, approximately 90% of data revenue comes from SMS).
Treating the iPhone as just another device is a lost opportunity. We have looked at the service packages that both America Movil and Telefonica Movistar offer and I even had the opportunity to talk to sales representatives and even though it seems they have made a huge effort to launch the service, I have my doubts about whether operators are actually working on a strategy to increase data usage. After all, charging for the service may look good on paper but if it does not really affect subscriber usage it might fail in the long run.
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