Brazilian market sees 41.5 per cent increase in mobile value-added service revenues

ACISION, has today announced the general release of the fourth edition of MAVAM – Acision’s Mobile VAS Monitor, analysing trends across the Brazilian value-added mobile services market and focusing on mobile social networking.

The latest report, which is produced in conjunction with research house Teleco and analyses data related to the first quarter of 2010, reveals that Mobile VAS revenues in Brazil have reached R$ 2.4 billion, an amount that represents a 41.5 per cent increase in VAS revenues compared to the same period in 2009. The data also highlights that value-added services represent 14.8 per cent of Brazilian operator’s gross revenues – an uplift from 11.5 per cent from the first quarter of 2009.

"To continue increasing VAS revenues, operators do not necessarily need to make significant investments in infrastructure," said Rafael Steinhauser, Acision’s president for Latin America. “A key way to expand VAS revenues is to stimulate the usage of services such as messaging, predominantly SMS, through packages and promotions which are aimed at reducing the average cost. MAVAM’ latest edition reveals that SMS continues to be the top Mobile VAS in Brazil with 79 per cent of research respondents claiming to have used the service in the first quarter of 2010. The average recoded rate of sent text messages went from 23 SMS per mobile phone in February 2010 to 26 text messages per mobile phone in April 2010. As for the average unitary cost of an SMS, it fell in that same period, from R$ 0.24 to R$ 0.13.

The incentive to use mobile phones for Internet access and, specifically, to access social networking sites is another way of increasing Mobile VAS revenues. As highlighted in this edition, social networks such as Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn and Twitter have become a favourites among Brazilians, placing the country as a world leader in terms of adoption. MAVAM reveals that 69 per cent of interviewees claimed to access social networking sites on a regular basis, mainly to communicate with friends. However, out of that total, only 3 per cent access networks through mobile phones – a percentage that increases to 13 per cent among users of Smartphone.

“The growth of social networking is very impressive,” adds Steinhauser. “People are increasingly using channels such as Orkut, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to communicate as well as exchange photos and videos with friends. The trend can be emulated via mobile phones if the operators provide easy, affordable access to mobile broadband."

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