According to a recently-released Signals Telecom Consulting report, value-added services such as mobile TV represent an opportunity for Latin American operators to garner revenues and customer loyalty, a potential furthered by 3G network rollouts in the region.
At the same time, these rewards won’t come immediately. Factors like operator focus on high-consumption users with expensive handsets and services, wild inconsistency in how user plans offer and bill, and as yet sketchy programming all make the consulting firm characterize Latin America’s mobile TV market as still “in development.”
In addition, the prevalence of a unicast business model running in 3G networks impedes service implementation on a massive, rather than a local, scale. As things stand, Signals estimates that by 2013, mobile TV revenue will reach $1.8 billion — 2.7 percent of total telecommunications sector revenues — in the seven largest Latin American telecommunications markets.
