Latin America set to see 12mn mobile computing devices in 2014 – ABI – Regional (Business News Americas)

Latin America could see some 12mn ultra mobile PCs (UMPC), netbooks, mobile internet devices (MIDs) and mobile consumer electronics devices shipped to the region in 2014, Jeff Orr, senior analyst with ABI Research, told BNamericas.

According to Orr, the global total will be around 385mn devices for that year. Developing markets will gradually become the largest opportunity for sales of such devices given their lower prices when compared to traditional laptops.

MIDs, which fall between a smartphone and a notebook, are gaining in popularity due to models with slider keyboards, clamshells and touch screen only interfaces. Such devices include Nokia’s (NYSE: NOK) N900, which was launched at Nokia World in September this year.

Orr also sees potential growth for internet tablets, which fall somewhere between a PDA and a UMPC, and slightly below Intel’s MID. MIDs have not taken off this year, and ABI estimates that only 1mn will be shipped worldwide in 2009, of which 30,000-35,000 will be in Latin America, “which is almost not worth talking about,” Orr added.

Where the analyst sees the biggest potential is for netbooks, which resemble small laptops, but are typically 80% the size of a laptop, with less processing power, memory and storage space. ABI estimates some 1mn netbooks will be shipped this year in Latin America out of a global market of 35mn. In 2014, Orr expects 6mn netbooks to be shipped to the region.

Netbooks emerged from the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative as an affordable computer for school children or students to help connect them to digital society. However, the netbook took on a life of its own and became adopted more as a second laptop, and a convenient, light laptop that is useful when the user does not need to perform tasks that require a lot of processing power. To date, those devices are most popular in western Europe, North America and Asia.

“The netbooks really came about as a value priced laptop computer being able to integrate some of the techniques incorporated into the OLPC or Classmate PCS, and offer them to the lower end of developed markets,” Orr said. Today, in the US the low end of the laptop market is US$750, whereas netbooks cost US$300-500.

Netbooks took off this year due to the global economic crisis and people being more careful with their expenditures on computer technology, he added.

The analyst sees huge potential for netbooks in India and China with prices coming down to around US$200. However, many parts of those markets are still not prepared for netbooks, given that internet access is not sufficiently available in rural areas.

And while Latin America has reasonably good voice coverage, the challenge is to migrate those clients to mobile data use.

“On a country by country basis, you’re going to have a different readiness to make that occur. The biggest impediment in Latin America is the access to more spectrum, which would allow for more than voice to be covered by those services,” he said.

In Brazil, for example, companies that have spectrum use it to offer earth based satellite services, and will be reluctant to give up that spectrum.

“There’s not a business opportunity yet. It’s still stuck in regulation, and as that spectrum is freed up and auctioned, maybe that spectrum can be used for new services,” Orr added.

Looking ahead, Orr believes that there will continue to be a market for both netbooks and notebooks, but he expects the gap between netbooks and MIDs to widen, without any cannibalization of one or the other.

“Those thinking of buying a notebook might buy a netbook, just as those thinking of buying a smartphone might go for a MID,” he said. As more information is stored in the cloud, there will be less need for computers with high storage capabilities.

The analyst expects that ultramobile devices will also become more specialized as has been seen with the growing popularity of e-book readers, which will be designed mainly for reading content but will have calling and internet functionalities as well. Orr calls these consumer electronics devices.

“What differentiates them from a MID or an UMPC or a netbook is the purpose they’re built for. They’re not general computing platforms for doing email or looking up directions. The same people that are looking to buy an MP3 player today or a portable DVD player would be considering these consumer electronics devices in years to come. Some of those are there today, like an e-book reader.” Business News Americas

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