Business News Americas | February 3, 2011 | Christian Molinari
Mobile instant messaging, mobile email and mobile social networking are becoming must-have features for Latin Americans, and not just on high-end smartphones, but also particularly in the mid-range feature phones, Carsten Brinkschulte, CEO of UK mobile email and synchronization solutions provider Synchronica, told BNamericas.
“Feature phones are competing with smartphones and need to be able to deliver similar services. So we see a lot of interest and a lot of traction in the device manufacturer space,” he said.
So far Synchronica has eight device manufacturers licensing and using its infrastructure for mobile email, synchronization or instant messaging. “It represented about 40% of our revenues last year – which is significant since it was at zero in 2009,” Brinkschulte added. Of the eight, only one firm – Latin American wireless equipment distributor Brightstar – has allowed its name to be made public as an OEM working with Synchronica.
While Synchronica has yet to release its 2010 results, outside analysts forecast the company will post some US$10.8mn in sales, with an expected jump to US$17mn-18mn for 2011. The company posted US$5.9mn in 2009 revenues.
The executive highlighted “a very good uptake rate” with América Móvil (NYSE: AMX), with which it has an agreement to roll out its infrastructure for all of AMX’s 17 Latin American subsidiaries. The firm has signed six subsidiaries so far but Brinkschulte is confident of meeting its March 31 target of getting all subsidiaries, as “we already have the majority of end users – Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina – those are the hotspots. The focus is to get exposure to the high volume markets, now it’s completing the other 20-25% to be done.”
On a global level, the revenue breakdown between license sales versus revenue sharing is about 60-40, he said, and “we expect the revenue share aspect to increase substantially.”
