Acision, the global leader in mobile messaging, has today published its ninth edition of MAVAM – Acision Mobile VAS Monitor– a research report analysing the key trends, including sales and usage of Value Added Services (VAS) in Brazil. The study found that VAS now represents 20% of Brazilian operators’ net sales and grew 31% between June 2010 and June 2011. MAVAM identified that a significant portion of increased VAS revenues is related to the use of modern Smartphone devices, with operators’ net sales of these handsets rising by 37% over the same period – June 2010 to June 2011.
During the second quarter of 2011, net VAS sales totalled 2.48 billion BRL. MAVAM found that the leading service today is mobile internet, with 49% of total VAS revenues, which is equivalent to 1.24 billion BRL (over the period from March to June 2011). The survey also found that 78% of those interviewed had now activated internet access on their devices, with 45% of those using the internet in the past three months. Net SMS sales also ranked highly, generating 992 million BRL revenues for the second quarter of the year, up 29% on 2010 and equivalent to 41% of VAS revenues. The frequency of SMS usage is also growing in Brazil with 56% of people using the service sending more than one SMS per day during the second quarter – 10% higher than the results for the first quarter of 2011.
“Revenue from VAS sales at Brazilian operators grew 31% in quarter two 2011, while voice revenues only rose 4% in the same period,” said Vancrei Oliveira, Acision vice president for Latin America. “This reveals that the trend we forecast is taking shape – consumers preferring to use mobile services, including mobile messaging services, for regular communication over and above voice.”
MAVAM’s ninth edition takes a closer look at Mobile Money and Mobile Banking services. The report assessed how much Brazilian customers know about services currently offered by banks and other financial institutions, as well as options for making payments via a cell phone. On average, 69% of those interviewed are still unaware of the various mobile banking and mobile payment services, which can be accessed via their cell phone. The most recognised mobile money service is the SMS transaction alert (24%). 10% of those interviewed had accessed a banking website via their cell phone, however, only 4% had never made a payment using their cell phone. This indicates that more consumer education is needed on the types of services on offer.
“The MAVAM study identified many initiatives which operators can enforce to increase VAS service adoption among users, including clever pricing models, guaranteed security and reliability as well as better communication of available features. Many people are still unaware of the costs and advantages of using VAS, and operators now need to be smart by rapidly rolling out innovative, new services that differentiate them, can easily be monetised and marketed while meeting user demand. Acision recently launched its Cloud Services Delivery Model to address this scenario, which ensures operators can quickly and easily launch value added services, such as personalised messaging, with minimum expenditure and investment but reaping the rewards of maximum revenue generation,” added Vancrei.
Other VAS results:
In this edition, MAVAM also indicated that 40% of interviewees had access to social networks via their cell phone, 11% higher than in the previous edition of MAVAM. There was also an increase in the number of people accessing Facebook (90%) and Orkut (65%). Access to the LinkedIn and Twitter networks remained unchanged: 10% and 60%, respectively.
Daily use of Instant Messaging (IM) intensified in the second quarter 2011. The report revealed that the IM service was used by 22% of users (compared with just 8% in the previous period) with the majority of them under the age of 34. This is probably due to the increased adoption of Smartphones in Brazil and the rise in the number of IM applications now available on Smartphones.
The most frequent method of downloading entertainment files to cell phones, such as games, media and music, is from a PC connected to the phone (37%). The second most popular method is via Bluetooth (20%). Users downloading entertainment over the mobile network vary between 5% (via WAP portal) and 3% (via app store).
In mobile telephone marketing, mobile telephone operators were the leading senders of user messages: 83% of people said they had received some type of marketing approach via their cell phone. Those in lower income brackets are most receptive to this type of message and give greater attention to the content sent.