Latin America News [TCRN] – The Internet is a huge driver of economic growth, since its inception. In North America, as a sector the Internet is approximately 3% of GDP, larger than agriculture or energy. This represents just over 20% of economic growth in the past 5 years, and still growing. Every job that the Internet is responsible for losing, 2.6 new net jobs are created.
Internet access allows free flow of information on demand, crates job, demand, and opportunity for individuals, small business and large business. Latin America is coming online faster than any other region on Earth. Add the fact that Latina American political constraints are easing, with growing cooperation, better cross border movement of goods, and the explosion of Latin America Free Trade Agreements.
The 2012 Latin America Digital Future in Focus report by comScore, Latin America’s online population grew faster than any other global region in 2011, rising 16% to 129.3 million.
Latin America has 217 million internet users in 2011, according to eMarketer and is expected to grow to 285 million by 2015.
Latin Americans lead the world in search frequency. In 2011, the total number of searches carried out grew by 38 percent to more than 21 billion in December.
ECommerce:
ECommerce plays a huge role in economic development and Latin Americans are spending online – 59% of internet users in Latin America bought products online in the past year. With the e-commerce industry in Latin America is still in its infancy, experts are seeing this as key driver in the region economic growth. More purchases, more eCom sites, more products; investors are seeing easy start-up opportunities, as online products and services that are “old news” in North America are fresh new ideas in an emerging market.
Online Travel/Tour Market:
According to a report from PhoCusWright, the Latin American online travel marketplace is bursting with potential, and is expecting strong double-digit growth over the next number of years; this is because of the strong tourism development, expanding middle class and versatile online payment options.
Access through Mobile Device:
Latin America has some of the highest adoption rates of mobile devices in the world and overall mobile phone user penetration of 55.4% and growing. Latino’s often may not have a home laptop but they will pay top dollar for the best mobile devices.
As personal liberty and freedoms expand in Latin America, the Internet is seen as the greatest expression of freedom in a region that was dominated by ‘state’ control and constraints as well as state run capitalism. Now the trade is opening, Internet, communications and travel are opening, the middle class is growing, and investors seeking Latin America News opportunity now look to Latin America before the Asian Pacific, as the place to make the best ROI in the coming decades.
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San Jose Costa Rica
Category: Investing in Latin America