This week in the Latin American Roundup: French company Gamned opens a local office in Sao Paulo, Brazil, led by Olivier Goulon, co-founder; Chilean Mobile Market called “small, but advanced” by eMarketer, to reach 13 million users this year; and, finally, data about comScore’s latest report, emphasising the importance of investing in local publishers to reach the audience — internet users spend 15% of their time on entertainment websites, and the list is dominated by local companies.

Gamned opens an office in Brazil

The French company Gamned announced its entry in the Brazilian market with the opening of local offices in Sao Paulo. Founded in 2009, the company has 50 staff members in France, but also in their other offices, in Switzerland, Belgium, and Dubai.

Last year, Gamned had €12m in revenues (£10m), an increase by 50% compared to the previous year. They also increased their client portfolio by 40% in the same period. This year, Gamned claims their revenues already reached €20m (£16.m).

In Brazil, Gamned introduces its own programmatic technology, Engaged!, which allows creating banners in real time according to the audience profile, in different platforms, including desktop and mobile. Their platform take into account geolocation, device, time, user behaviour, and context. The company claims to be able to direct users to the closest physical store after seeing an ad in their smartphone, for example, or even to show different products in the campaigns based on weather forecast for the day.

“During an economic crisis moment, which Brazil is experiencing, advertisers want to know where their ad spending is going. We believe agencies can better handle their budgets and investments”, said Oliver Goulon, co-founder, Gamned, who is leading the Brazilian operations.

“We are specialised in programmatic media, we have already invested €10m in research and development in it. Brazil is a great bet, because we know its potential for growth and the opportunities there”, said Goulon.

'Small, but advanced': the Chilean mobile market

eMarketer’s latest report places Chile as a small market, yet developed and mature, whose ad spending will expand at a sustained double-digit rate until 2020.

The scene is dominated by three competitors: domestic player Entel (35.7%), Telefónica’s Movistar (34.3%), and Claro (24.1%).

The number of mobile phone users should reach 13 million this year, according to eMarketer, a 1.5% growth increase year-on-year. This way, mobile phone user penetration will increase from 73.9% in 2016 to 75.1% in 2020, reaching 13.7 million people.

Latin American internet users spend 15% of their time on entertainment websites

Latin American users spend more time visiting entertainment websites than any other user in the world, according to comScore’s latest report. YouTube is at the top of the list, accumulating 132.7 million unique visitors in the region last April.

Yet, local publishers are crucial for advertisers to reach their audience. Local websites dominate the list of 10 top accessed publishers, positioned above brands such as Netflix and Spotify. In second place, there is MSN Entertainment (19.4 million users), followed by Globo.com (18.8 million users), UOL (18.5 million), R7 (18.1 million). Then, in sixth place, there is Netflix (17.6 million users), Webedia (17.3 million), Spotify (11.2 million), Terra (11 million) and, finally, Musica.com, with 11 roughly million uses, in the 10th position.

YouTube’s popularity in Latin America is relevant: compared to other countries, the region is 10 points above the global average, and 20 points above North America, according to latest data from the GlobalWebIndex, collected in 2015.

Overall, internet users spend 15% of their time online in entertainment websites. the ratio is the highest number compared to any other region in the world.