LATAM Telecom

Subscriber usage behavior clearly shows that the Latin American market is ready for a solution such as GSMA Personal IM, also known as SMS 2.0 (Telefonica Spain, Acision) or Instant SMS (Comverse). The chart above measures three elements: Data ARPU (x), mobile penetration (y) and average number of SMS messages per user per month for several Latin American countries (1) . The countries with SMS usage in the region are Venezuela, Argentina and Ecuador; with Colombia having the lowest SMS usage. These countries also have a higher data ARPU; this is not surprising as in Latin America 70% to 90% of data revenue comes from SMS. What's relevant here is subscriber SMS usage, surpassing 100 messages per user per month as in the case of Venezuela and more recently Argentina; this tells us that heavy users are actually having live conversations using SMS; in other words, a segment of subscribers uses SMS as Instant Messaging, with a higher number of messages going back and forth per conversa...

The time has come for SMS 2.0? In the last three years, we have seen vendors introduce new messaging solutions, all claiming to be the next step in SMS evolution. Presence enabled services have received a lot of attention but have limited traction in the mobile market. IM, by no means a new service, has been one of the most successful services but still far behind the penetration SMS has. SMS reached a mature stage years ago, its growth rate has flattened and it has kept the same form and functionality since it was first introduced. However, it remains one the top revenue generator for mobile operators. So what do you do for an encore? Cellular News published an interesting note on February 2nd: "­Acision has announced that Russian mobile operator, MTS is using its Instant Messaging solution to offer an enhanced messaging experience to its subscribers. Combining the Acision Person to Person Gateway with core elements from Colibria's product portfolio - including the Instant 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...