Acision Press Release | 09 December 2010
Following the success of the Acision Mobile VAS Monitor (MAVAM) in Brazil, Acision, a world leader in mobile data, today announces the launch of its first edition for Latin America. MAVAM LATAM, which will provide analysis on regional trends in mobile value added service usage every quarter, will this time focus on Mexico, and brings a new source of information on VAS to industry players in this market. In this report, the research found that VAS, which includes services such as SMS, MMS, mobile broadband, entertainment, mobile banking, social networking and instant messaging, currently represents a major portion of operators’ revenues, and demonstrated that these services are increasing ARPU at a time when voice service usage is dropping worldwide.
Today Latin America already has approximately 540 million mobile service subscribers, with Mexico registering 88.2 million subscribers, a 79% market penetration, and generating around $15 billion in revenue annually. MAVAM indicates that around 23% of Mexican operators total revenues come from value added services, with the popular service, SMS, one of the most widely used by Mexicans. 97% said they had used SMS in the last three months.
MMS usage is also common, with 14% of users accessing the service during the last quarter. This is high compared to the Brazilian market, where MMS is only used by 5% of cell phone owners. Another major finding in Mexico is that Mobile Marketing is something that 79% of users receive, with 17% stating they receive marketing messages on a daily basis.
“Signs of increased uptake of VAS in the Latin American mobile market have caught our attention in recent months, especially in Mexico. This rise in usage reinforces the increased importance of these services and the need for mobile operators to invest in the delivery of high quality VAS to generate increased ARPU and profitability,” said Rafael Steinhauser, Acision’s president for Latin America.
“More than 14 months after we launched our first MAVAM surveys in Brazil, we have seen the market change significantly as more and more users adopt and demand VAS. MAVAM acts as a tool to provide operators, opinion formers and the industry as a whole with a service that can be used as a parameter for measuring the size of the market which, until we launched this initiative, was not widely explored. We will now provide this service to other countries in the region, such as Mexico, so the industry can track trends in the VAS and understand what services are delivering additional value and revenue,” Steinhauser concluded.
MAVAM – Latin American Edition Key Results
- Total revenue in Mexico reaches 15 billions US dollars with 23% coming VAS (SMS 60%; Data: 20%; others: 20%)
- 97% of users use SMS
- 80% use their mobile handsets to listen music
- 82% use their handset to play games
- 11% of users access social networks from their mobile. For heavy users this number goes to 32%
- 6% have accessed a bank service and 5% have made a payment
- 79% received marketing messages
About Acision
As a world leader in mobile data, Acision powers innovation and profitable growth in mobile data services. As a pioneer of mobile messaging, Acision’s real time mobile data solutions support its customers worldwide to drive new revenues with innovative services while controlling and monetizing data traffic. For more information, visit Acision at www.acision.com
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