LATAM Telecom

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...

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 (~...