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...