Mexico continues to lead the Latin American SMS market

According to iPling's friends over at RCR Wireless News, Mexico has the largest short message service market in Latin America and is the second largest mobile market in Latin America and the Caribbean. The Acision Mobile Value Added Service Monitor reports value added services sales in Mexico increased by 38% in the third quarter of 2011, generating just over $1 billion and accounting for 31% of all mobile operators’ service sales there.

Of the total of VAS sales, 57% were generated from SMS and multimedia messaging services, totaling $601 million in sales in the third quarter of 2011 and up 32% year-over-year. Almost all of the users MAVAM polled (98%) used SMS (up 3% from Q1 2011), with 59% sending more than one text message a day. This from a survey of SMS, MMS and instant messaging use during the fourth quarter of last year.

Mexico’s wireless telecommunications sector is dominated by América Móvil’s Telcel, which controls about 75% of the market. The domination by a single carrier has pushed government regulators to implement plans to improve the competitive landscape, though the efforts have so far seen few results.

The market still has plenty of room to grow, but mobile operators and government agencies must find ways to make the sector increasingly competitive. Paradoxically, Mexico's SMS rates remain among the highest in the world.