DLD09 live

1. Hispanic Markets

   Tags: dld· dld09  -  1 comment

   

   Mariano Amartino (Uberin), Joaquin Cuenca (Panoramio), Eduardo Arcos (Hipertextual), RJ Friedlander (Planeta), Enrique Dans (enriquedans.com), Moderation: Martin Varsavsky (FON)

   Panoramio is introduced as the company who got bought buy Google and now integrates pictures into Google Earth. Planeta is one of the biggest publishing houses in the spanish speaking market.

   Varsavsky: "Is the Spanish market really a market?"
   The panel agrees more or less that it's a collection of markets with a common language. The countries all are very different in terms of law, administration and culture.

   Varsavski: "Telefonica has the largest market capitalization of all the European telcos. So some manage obviously to take advantage. They do everything right in South America. The richest man in the world is Mexican and he makes most of his money in the Spanish speaking world."
   Amartino: "We live in constant crisis in South America, so they buy businesses cheap."

   Varsavsky: "E-commerce does not really work in South America. Panoramio is one of the few success stories from Spanish speaking market, except Orkut which is extremely successful in Brazil"

   Success factors for online business in the Spanish speaking markets seem to be very random according to the panel. In one country there is a cooperation with a big telco, in the other the tipping point is never reached. Some sites are surprisingly successful, like Fotolog.

   Enrique Dans: "Are herding effects in Spanish speaking markets stronger? The biggest sites have a bigger market share than in other countries, e.g. Google more than 90% of search in Spain." Varsavsky: "True, maybe Spanish twitterers are the most followed in the world. Maybe it's when Spanish people fall in love, they fall in love."

   Varsavsky: "Do you think there was negativity to American sites and will change now?"
   Ardos: "There is some kind of friction in Mexico, but I don't think that is the same in other countries" Amartino: "Yes, I think, now there is more sympathy."
   Abela: "I think people do not care:"

   As a common point the panel agrees that language is extremely important. People need to have content or user interfaces in Spanish. Especially in Spain, according to Varsavsky, people fight against other languages, it is less extreme in Latin America.

   General successful factors for Hispanic market
   The panel agreed that there is not really ONE market. Still there are things to be done especifically wrong or right, as well as there are opportunities.

   Friedlander: "In ecommerce are opprtunities, but there is still a lot to do: Customs, logistics, taxes. As well as in advertising are a lot of challenges: The infrastructure of agencies that handle the big brands in different countries is very inconsistent in South America. In Europe you can at least run Pan European campaigns but there is no player who would do that in South America."

   Amartino points to another business opportunity in Argentina: Low cost and well educated people. Many offices open in Buenos Aires to handle international business, also in advertising and online business.

   Here is the full video from the Hispanic market panel at DLD09:
   

   

   Thomas Praus
   ispanic internet market. Bloggers, editors and entrepreneurs discuss el mundo hispanohablante.

   January 27, 2009
   10:28 AM