Business News Americas | February 15, 2011 | Patrick Nixon
As many as 400mn Latin Americans will have a smartphone in the next five years, as the boom in mobile data traffic use drives down the cost of these devices, América Móvil (NYSE: AMX) chief executive Daniel Hajj told the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on Tuesday.
During a keynote speech, Hajj spoke of the incredibly fast growth in mobile communications in the region in recent years, reaching almost 100% penetration in most markets. He predicted that the second wave – the uptake of mobile data – would be a major contributor to social and economic development.
Hajj said that while the current number of 3G devices was small in the region, data traffic was growing faster in Latin America than in the US. And smartphones are now a third of the cost they were in 2009.
Over the last decade, growth in wireless penetration in Latin America was four times that of Europe and 3.5 times that of the US.
“The huge gap that separates Latin America from the US and Europe has been breached with mobile penetration in Latin America around the same as in the US and within shooting distance of that in Europe,” Hajj said.
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