LATAM Telecom

Given MSN's slow approach to developing the MIM market in Latin America, it will be interesting tosee if Telefonica's strategy of repackaging Personal IM as SMS 2.0 -like they are doing in Spain- will work in Latin America.It is no secret that operators in Latin America have triedfor several years to sign an agreement with MSN for Mobile Instant Messaging with no success. Until 2006, only Movistar Chile and Argentina were able to sign such an agreement and that was for a WAP based solution.GSMA is developing an open solution, with interconnection between operators . In Europe operators have already deployed such a solution, this seems like an appropriate strategy for the Latin American market.GSMA has also stated that it eventually wants to have interconnectivity with portals. This makes us wonder how long can MSN stand the pressure? With two huge groups, Telefonica and America Movil, dominating the landscape in one of the fastest growing mobile markets, it shouldn't be d...

About a month ago, GSM Association issued a press release announcing Personal Instant Messaging Services Go Live in Asia with the commercial launch of IM in India (Aircel, Bharti Airtel, BPL Mobile, BSNL, Idea, MTNL, Reliance Telecom, Spice and Vodafone-Essar) and Malaysia (DiGi Telecommunications and Maxis), which allows customers of those networks to send each other instant messages using their mobile phones. According to GSMA, more than 40 mobile operators worldwide are developing Personal IM services. This initiative has taken root in Latin America with Telefonica Movistar leading the way with their SMS 2.0 initiative. SMS 2.0 is Telefonica's commercial name for the same service, which GSMA calls Personal Instant Messaging. GSMA has been working hard for the last two years to support the development of the technical and commercial framework for this service. In Latin America, Telefonica Movistar is already looking into deploying this service in different operations. Brazil ope...

Despite operator's interest and efforts in the last three years or so, Latin America has yet to catch up to their counterparts in the USA, Australia and Europe with a gateway/client MIM solution. The issue seems to be that so far, operators have shown interest in a portal messenger, in a region where MSN has more than 80% market share (90% according to some). Movistar and America Movil have both had talks with MSN but so far only Movistar Chile and Argentina have a formal agreement (see Movistar and Microsoft have created in Chile the first instant message community for mobile telephones ) for a WAP based solution. MSN is said to be looking at major markets (Mexico, Brazil) and going on a case by case basis, which means that any negotiation with America Movil and Telefonica Movistar will be done per country/operator. Talks between Latin American operators and MSN, however, have been going on for several years now and operators have become increasingly frustrated. Other portals (AOL...

From Cellular News and other news sources, we find out that Microsoft has started placing advertisements on the U.S. version of MSN Mobile. Microsoft already serves up mobile ads in Japan and some European markets. Competitor Yahoo began selling cell phone ads phones in the U.S. in late 2006 and expanded overseas in February (source: Cellular News ). What about Latin America? Microsoft introduced MSN Mobile in the Latin American market in 2006, with Brazil leading the way ( source ), as well as Movistar Chile and Argentina, with the launch of MSN Mobile ( source ). While this service is available in most of the region, it is a WAP based service that can be cumbersome. There are no available statistics that we know of for the penetration of this service, but we expect them to be very low. The deployment of 3G networks in the region can probably help operators provide a better user experience for this service, although given the limitations presented by a mostly prepaid customer base (~...