Latin America Becoming The Next Hot Spot for OTT and Streaming Media Services
While many vendors talk about Europe and Asia as the regions of the world they are expanding into, Latin America is going to quickly become the next go to hot spot. In specific countries like Brazil and others, online video consumption has increased significantly in recent years. Just take a look at some of these recent stats:
- Video market in Brazil is one of largest worldwide – viewing audience of 43 million people monthly and penetration of 82.2% among internet users (Dec/12);
- Internet is the #2 in advertising spending;
- Brazil ranks as the 5th largest internet market globally.
- Brazilians spent $12.2 billion in online retail sales in 2012 – and will spend over $25 billion by 2017.
- Brazil will host the two most important sport events, World Cup and Olympics, receiving over $30 billion on investment from the Brazilian government.
- Local Government will invest $ 9 billion in broadband in the next 4 years.
- Latin Americans spend 56% more time on social networking sites than the worldwide average.
- People in Latin America spent $3.62 billions in digital ads in 2012 – 112% increase in just four years.
- In 2013, Latin America will be #2 in the world in digital ad spend.
While not every country in Latin America has a large population capable of getting a 2-3Mbps video stream, many do, and they have huge populations with large Internet penetration rates:
- Argentina: As of March 2010 the country had a 64% Internet penetration rate with 26.6M users with an average broadband speed of 3.33Mbps.
- Brazil: As of Dec. 2009 the country had a 37.8% Internet penetration rate with 75M users with an average broadband speed of 4.46Mbps.
- Chile: At the end of 2009 the country had a 50% Internet penetration rate with 10M users with an average broadband speed of 6.62Mbps.
- Colombia: In mid 2010 the country had a 48% Internet penetration rate with 21M users with an average broadband speed of 4.32Mbps.
- Mexico: In 2010 the country had a 27% Internet penetration rate with 30.6M users with an average broadband speed of 3.54Mbps.
- Peru: As of June 2010 the country had a 27% Internet penetration rate with 8.8M users with an average broadband speed of 4.62Mbps.
For all of Latin America combined, we’re looking at a population of roughly 600M with more than one-third of them online, with a combined average broadband speed of more than 3 Mbps.
Investments in companies involved in providing video services in the Latin American market are also starting to pick up, the latest being Brazilian premium video ad network Samba Ads, who announced last week that they have raised $500k in seed funding and Level 3’s purchase of Global Crossing at the end of 2011. We have also seen more content services launched in Latin America in the past few quarters with Deezer rolling out in 35 countries, Netflix launching in 43 countries and OTT offerings like Total Movie continuing to expand. I’m also seeing new tradeshows and conferences popping up in countries like Brazil and Columbia with Sportel Rio being a good business venue for high-level sports and new media vendors and Andina Link, which is Latin America’s premier trade fair for the broadband and cable television industry.
While you may not hear much about the Latin American market for streaming media services yet, you will soon. Over-the-top video has launched in several Latin American countries (with at least a dozen countries poised to follow), offered by no less than six digital media operators. We see it as being such a large opportunity for vendors that we hosted a whole panel on the topic at last year’s Streaming Media East show, with speakers from Telefonica, Total Movie, Bazuca and DLA. You can check out a video of that session here.
If your company is based in Latin America and offers streaming media services, please put the name and website URL of your company in the comments section below so I can keep track of vendors in that region.