20 June 2008

South American Mobile Data Revenues In For Big Rise

Increasing adoption of messaging and content services is forecast to push operator-billed data revenues in South America from $8.7 billion in 2008 to more than $23.3 billion by 2013, according to a report.

The South American mobile user base is expected to rise from 411 million in 2008 to 556 million in 2013, according to the report by market research company Juniper Research

Juniper Research found that as voice revenues are coming under ever-increasing pressure from competitive pricing and regulatory intervention, operators are seeking to enhance their portfolios of on-portal content. 

“Although we’ve witnessed a quite remarkable surge in subscriber growth across the region over the past three years, South America continues to lag behind the rest of the world in terms of its uptake of non-voice services.  And while this can in part be attributed to the historical difficulties around interoperability which delayed mass adoption of SMS services, it is also fair to say that the high cost of games, browsing and mobile video has acted as a significant inhibitor to growth,” commented Juniper Research report author Dr Windsor Holden.