Mobile advertising in Brazil

 In advertising, research

One of the great things about running a popular blog on a hot topic such as mobile advertising is that you hear from amazing thought leaders and practitioners from around the world.

Recently, I was contacted by Rafael Storch de Freitas who is an account manager with a large agency in Brazil.

He was writing to me to share some recent mobile advertising statistics from the region, and he has kindly allowed me to share the findings here.

Rafael mentioned that he recently attended a presentation from the biggest publisher in Brazil, called Editora Abril, about the habits of young people (focused on advertising).

He was surprised when they showed a ranking they have created for the media channels most liked and disliked by them, to receive advertising communication (see below).

Mobile advertising appears with 5 points, on the lower “neutral” area of the ranking, followed by a 1/4 page magazine ad.

Rafael’s comment was that the adoption of mobile phones in  Brazil, is growing incredibly fast, but when you look what young people think about it, that’s when you see that Brazil is not really creating exciting mobile advertising campaigns.

Of course there are some important local factors to take into consideration, as the majority of subscribers have pre-paid phones, and a low monthly income.  The model of mobile advertising with suitable reach is still SMS.

However, in Brazil, SMS advertising is seen as SPAM, since mobile operators use it without any connection with the target audience, and apparently this is why these young people don’t like mobile advertising.

Rafael remarked that it is sad to see this information distributed without any real assessment, and thought this may lead to a slowdown of mobile advertising in Brazil.

He also sent me a summary of findings from a couple of local sources – presented below.

Mobile in Brazil (information from VEJA Magazine)

  • 100 million phones in the market
  • 6 in 10 mobile phone owners have monthly income lower then R$480,00 (approx US$190)
  • 80% are pre-paid phones
  • 50% of subscribers are between 14 and 30 years old
  • 10% of subscribers are more than 50 years old
  • Brazil is the sixth biggest mobile phone market in the world
  • 8 in 10 have changed their mobile more than phone once in a year (Yankee Group research)
  • 43% have changed their handset 4 times in the same period
  • In 2005 more than 3 billion SMS messages were sent

According to the government mobile regulatory agency, ANATEL, there were 144.8 million active phones in October this year. In 2008, more than 23 million phones were activated. (13.08% growth, from the same period in 2007).

Nokia reported an increase from 4% to 10% sales for smartphones between May and June this year in Brazil.  Premium models accounted for 20% of sales, a number never reached before in this country.

This is an amazing insight into one of the BRIC countries where many analysts predict the next wave of growth in mobile will occur.

Thank you very much to our contributor from Brazil, Rafael Storch de Freitas and I hope we are treated to regular updates from this exciting market.

If there are any other London Calling readers with local statistics, please feel free to send them in and I will publish them so the rest of the community can benefit as we have here from Rafael’s insight.

About 

Based in London, The Actionable Futurist and former Global Managing Partner at IBM, Andrew Grill is a popular and sought-after presenter and comementator on issues around digital disruption, workplace of the future and new technologies such as blockchain. Andrew is a multiple TEDx and International Keynote Speaker.