Pmovil expects US$1.67mn sales

Brazilian wireless data solutions provider Pmovil expects total revenues this year of 5mn reais (US$1.67mn), of which 3mn reais will come from local sales, Pmovil CEO Fabian de la Rua told BNamericas. Pmovil now has offices in Buenos Aires and Santiago, and the two extensions also cover the Peruvian and Paraguayan markets, respectively. Paraguay, surprisingly, is Latin America's data revenue powerhouse, with the highest SMS volume per capita, according to de la Rua. The country boasts only 2.5 million mobile subscribers, but which generate a volume of 60 million short messages monthly. Also helping is the fact that Paraguay's mobile teledensity exceeds one-third of the local population. The company has no plans to open shop in Mexico, because of the country's far distance from Pmovil's core markets, and because the wireless data market there "is a different reality," de la Rua said. However, Finnish telecoms supplier Nokia has just contracted Pmovil to create an MMS portal for Telefonica Moviles (NYSE: TEM) in Mexico, as part of a strategy to help boost Nokia's hi-tech handset sales. Additionally, the portal would function on Nokia's multimedia service center (MMSC) platform. Pmovil would then negotiate a revenue sharing agreement with Telefonica Moviles. De la Rua said the Mexico deal has not yet been signed, but will be closed soon. He added Pmovil has already set up MMS portals for Brazilian mobile operator Oi and Telefonica Movil in Chile. Pmovil's MMS portal offers downloadable images, wallpaper, and ringtones. Pmovil's four main wireless applications are: short messaging service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), instant messenger via WAP and e-mail. SMS today is responsible for 40% of the company's revenues, and is the "killer application" of the wireless data market worldwide today, according to de la Rua. "About 25-30% of global operators' data revenue come from chat services," he said, emphasizing that while he does expect MMS to show "important growth" in coming years, SMS-based services will still remain king and also continue growing. "Our chat service is the most widely used in Latin America," he said, adding that Pmovil is also developing MMS applications and in fact considers itself to be Brazil's only MMS developer at present. According to de la Rua, challenges facing the wireless applications segment today include getting operators to spend more on advertising for the services, and increasing the penetration of MMS-enabled handsets. MMS-enabled handsets have only been made commercially available in Brazil, Chile and Venezuela, and penetration remains under 1% of total handsets in all three markets. However, de la Rua expects the figure to jump to 10% by the end of next year. Fabian de la Rua was one of the founders of Brazil's largest Internet service provider iG. At iG he started up the its mobile Internet unit Selig, which today contracts consulting and infrastructure management services from Pmovil. He is the nephew of Argentine ex-President Fernando de la Rua.