According to a report released by Cisco, broadband connections in Argentina have increased an amazing 35% during 2008.

The finding comes from the 7th edition of the Cisco Broadband Barometer, which is issued every 6 months by Cisco and IDC.

Mobile Broadband also registered strong growth of 50.4 % during the second half of 2008, demonstrating that this type of access is becoming popular in Argentina.

The penetration of broadband connections per 100 inhabitants reached 8.8 percent in December 2008, compared to 7.8 percent from the previous Barometer edition; positioning the country in the first place of Latin America in broadband penetration with Chile. Uruguay is in the second place with 7.6 percent. Even though the growth was significant, compare to Korea with 31 percent there is a big gap between developed countries and emerging ones.

The report revealed a few other interesting findings:

• • In the analysis by market segment, home connectivity representing 94 percent of the fixed connection total, while businesses account for 6 percent.
• • The distribution of mobile connections per market segment reveals the dominance of “residential” over “business” connectivity. The former accounts for 76 percent of connections, while the latter accounts for 24 percent.
• • As for the distribution per region, the province of Buenos Aires represents 55 percent of all mobile connections and 45 percent in the rest of the country.
• • The distribution of fixed connections per download speed grew in the ‘1 Mbps to 1.99 Mbps’ category. It went from 45 percent of the total connections in June 2008 to 47.3 percent in December of the same year, due to new offers by the service providers.

This is the distribution of people who access the Internet via Broadband (this includes home and work) from the Livra’s Panel:

People that access the Internet via Broadband in Livra’s Online Panel

Source: Livra Panels Incidence File May 09

More info  on the Cisco report here:

Broadband Connections Increase 35 Percent in Argentina During 2008 [PR Domain]

The research industry has a very good answer to those that question its validity in these times of crisis. When times are bad you need to make better, faster and more informed decisions. That is where market research comes in, especially online research which allows you to get faster results.

Nevertheless, big consumer marketers are seeking to shave 10 to 20% off of research budgets and the industry is being put to test.

John Quelch from HarvardBusiness.org says:

“In flush times, a rising tide of consumption can compensate for less than optimal branding, positioning, pricing, or segmentation. That is certainly not the case now. At the same time that marketers must pare down research expenditures, they face added pressure to secure high-quality data and insights”

He gives seven steps or recommendations to minimize the impact of the crisis, here is a summary of these:

• Stay focused. Savvy marketers focus their research on the products, brands, and markets that are key to their marketing strategy. In a recession, it’s essential to get a clear read on existing core customers, including those who are most loyal to the brand and those who are most profitable, rather than fritter away research resources on potential or peripheral consumers.
• Enlist trusted partners. Marketers and research suppliers who trust each other and have established long-term relationships can jointly plan how to extract more insights and make better decisions based on fewer expenditures. For example, combining data sets may reveal new leading indicators of changes in consumer behaviour. Tracking studies may have an edge over one-off projects.
• Value experience and judgement. Research buyers should tap the knowledge and intuitions of managers and researchers who’ve lived through previous recessions. In setting prices, for example, such insight can help calibrate the optimal level of price promotion offers. Experience also reveals proxies: in tough times, some marketers use research results from Sweden as a proxy for Scandinavia, rather than conducting the same research in all Scandinavian countries.
• Seize opportunities overseas. Some large multinational marketers, such as Unilever, are shifting research expenditures away from Western Europe and toward emerging markets in Asia and Latin America. Relative to the developed economies, the costs of research in emerging economies are less and the payoff from incremental insight can often be greater. Brand preferences and consumption levels in emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil tend to be more fluid. Consumer research is therefore critical to aid marketers trying to cement brand preferences early on as these economies develop.
• Go online with a dash of skepticism. Online research is cheap, fast, and the wave of the future. There are plenty of tools that allow non-expert users to create custom surveys in minutes. As an alternative to offline focus groups, custom online panels of consumers can be formed for qualitative research on new product ideas or new ads. Taking the do-it-yourself approach rather than outsourcing to a market research firm is attractive in a cost-cutting era, but you risk getting no more than what you pay for. The opinions of convenience sample of an enthusiastic online brand community may not represent all users.

• Don’t cut across the board. Just as important as knowing where to cut research is knowing where not to cut. When marketers are creating fewer new ads and introducing fewer new products, it is doubly important to use rigorous pretesting to select the strongest alternatives. In categories where the bases for consumers’ value judgements are changing, modest expenditures on copy research can prevent blowing much more money on ineffective messaging. Adding a few questions to standard tracking studies is a low-cost way to shed light on changes in customer attitudes and purchase behaviour. For key products, running conjoint studies to check on shifts in price elasticities of demand and price-attribute tradeoffs can usefully improve the profitability of pricing decisions at a time when cash is king.

• Keep an eye on the new consumer. No one has a perfect record of predicting the future, and the recession is making it harder for consumers to envision or articulate their needs. Even so, and despite budget pressures, smart marketers devote a portion of their market research to getting a handle on future changes in consumer behavior. Are consumers of your brand going to revert to previous consumption patterns when the recession ends? Or are they developing coping mechanisms that will endure, especially if the recession is lengthy? What new products and services will consumers be open to embracing? If, as in the financial services category, consumer confidence and trust in brands have been seriously eroded, how long and what steps will it take to regain them? Eventually, the recession will end, and future success depends on being well-positioned, based on sound research, when it does.

This post was based on the following article by John Quelch:

How to Use Market Research in a Recession [HarvardBusiness.Org]

According to a recently released ComScore report, Mexico has the second-largest Internet population in Latin America, with 12.7 million home and work users and total of 24.7 million users in the extended universe.

The report unveils a few previously unknown details:

• Mexican Internet users skew dramatically young: 7`% of Mexico’s online population is under the age of 34, compared to 52% of the Worldwide Population.
• As in many developing Internet markets, Mexico shows a strong focus on Communications: Instant Messengers, e-mail, Discussion/Chat, Social Networking and e-Cards.
• Young Internet users in Mexico spend far more time online than other young Internet users worldwide – the average 15-24 year old internet user in Mexico spends 26.6 hours online per month, five more hours than the average 15-24 year old. Mexican 15-24 Year olds (48% of Internet population) visit a larger number and a wider variety of websites and currently drive the poularity of Entertainment , Multimedia, Social Networking, and Photo Sites in Mexico.
• Mexican Internet users in older age groups spend less time online who compared with their contemporaries elsewhere, particularly in the 45-54 age group. They spend less time overall and visit fewer sites than their younger cohorts. Older users also make up more than their “fair share” of visiting to News, Business/Finance, Banking, Weather, and Travel sites.
• Visiting to Education sites is above average, reflecting the young profile of the market. Online newspaper visiting is above average
• While Social Networking and Multimedia are very popular in Mexico, penetration rates hover around the global average.
• Fragmented Social Network Landscape: The full category reaches 64.6% of the Mexican audience. There is not a clear leader: lots of functional sharing  overall with photo sharing sites, which are actually the Social Networking sites with the highest usage (Metroflog, Fotolog). In addition, Facebook’s growth in Mexico outpaces its global growth by almost 2x. At the current growth rates, Facebook will be the #1 Social Network in Mexico as early as June 2009.
• Older Internet users are more likely to visit News/Information sites, and as the Mexican internet market matures and overall web adoption increases, that segment of the market will drive growth in News and Information categories.
• Sports site visiting is below average in Mexico:23.7% of the online population visited a Sports site, compared to the worldwide average of 31.9% sports visiting.
• Mexico makes up 15% of the Latin American population but only 8% of online dollars. E-commerce buyers penetration in Mexico is 2%, compared to 6% in Brazil and 12% in Puerto Rico.

Livra’s online panel in Mexico is one of our most active and consists of over 235,000 people. 36% of our panel is in the 25-34 age group.

The data for this post was quoted from:

New Mexico Internet Statistics [Portada Online]

Since the “Swine Flu” outbreak started in Mexico, the world has been paying close attention to how the crisis develops. Last week we conducted a survey among 5,700 people from 8 different countries in Latin America (Argentina, Brasil, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela)  find out how the swine flu outbreak was impacting people’s lives, the level of information available, and people´s understanding of the disease.

Some of the results were to be expected, but most were surprising.

For example, despite the higher infection rate in Mexico, only 21% of Mexicans felt threatened by the disease in comparison to 35% of Colombians, 30% of Peruvians and 23% of Argentines. This may be related to how the local press is covering the story or to the fact that Mexicans are actually seeing how the threat is not that significant.

In Mexico, 23% of the people we asked knew someone who suspected they had swine flu while 7% of those interviewed knew someone who had been diagnosed with the disease.

One of the most controversial issues surrounding the outbreak is that of limiting travel from and to Mexico. The issue is particularly touchy since it has sparked passionate discussions that border with racism and discrimination towards Mexicans. The results show that the majority of people in the region feel that travel limitations are required:

These are a few other interesting results:

• 87% of those surveyed said that if diagnosed they would go straight to a hospital or doctor whereas the CDC and other health organizations recommend people to stay home and get in touch with the respective health service to avoid contact with other people.
• Only 50% of the people interviewed in Mexico are taking precautions against the disease. In fact more people in some of the other countries seem to be taking precautions than in Mexico:

• 72% of people in Mexico said they are using masks and the majority of people in the other countries said to be washing hands more often and avoiding crowded spaces.
• Over 64% of people in Mexico think that the outbreak will affect their economy.

Hope you find these useful.

Have any comments? Participate!

According to this eMarketer article (which quotes the latest comScore measurment) the Internet surpassed the 1 billion user mark. In fact, eMarketer puts the number at 1.172 billion when a broader sense of the definition is applied (counting access from Internet cafes, mobile phones or PDAs).

“Surpassing 1 billion global users is a significant landmark in the history of the Internet,” said Magid Abraham, comScore CEO, in a statement. “It is a monument to the increasingly unified global community in which we live and reminds us that the world truly is becoming more flat.”

To put this into perspective, the world’s population is currently estimated at around  6.7 billion, which means that over 17% of the world’s population are Internet users.

Here is a break down by region:

From a glass half empty point of view, the majority of people on earth still have no access to the Internet.

From a glass half full point of view, it is a sensational amount people. There is now a real critical mass to experiment on the Internet and it is difficult to imagine what impact this will have for future generations. To think that so many people can now interact with each other in so many ways while being so far away from each other is truly game changing. The fact that so many people use the Internet will also accelerate the speed at which the “non users” jump in.

From an online research point of view, this is further proof of how mainstream the Internet has become and how important it is to continue to develop innovative ways to interview people online. As the Internet population increases, users change their habits. At the moment social networking seems to be what people are doing the most and this trend seems to be here to stay.

Also interesting to see how Latin America seems to be instrumental to the growth…

Latin America, while comprising just 7.4 percent of the global Internet audience, is the region to watch, noted Jamie Gavin, a ComScore senior analyst.

“The U.S. is slowing down in its growth and momentum, but Latin America, with social networking and the mobile Internet, is expected to gain momentum over the next few years,” Gavin said.

Brazil for example, ranks 9th in the top 10 countries in terms of Internet usage:

At Livra, we are can’t wait for the next billion people to start using the Internet

Sources:

A Billion Internet Users, and Counting [eMarketer]
Internet Users Worldwide surpass 1 billion [Cnet]

A study focused in the usage of social networks in Latin America conducted by comScore found that 85% of Brazilian internet users over 15 years old (that have connected from work or home) have visited social networking websites.

The year to year growth is a significant 9% when compared to September 2007, when  the figure was 76%.

With this study Brasil is positioned as the second country in terms of social networks popularity, Canada being first.

Within other Latin American countries, figures are rather impressive. With for example Chile and Colombia reaching 80%.

In terms of the players, Orkut (owned by Google) seems to be the leader in the region. With its visitor numbers  almost five times higher than the others, it’s interesting how the Latin American social networking landscape differs so greatly from the US and Europe. Livra conducted a study last year whith similar results.

Livra and Social Networks

In Livra we are still strong believers of the impact that social networks are having in the way that we recruit and engage online panelists.  Earlier this year we launched our own social surveys website and we are currently working on different ways to interact with some of the leading social networks in the region. The results so far are great, check out the activity in one of the user generated surveys in Livra Brasil:

Which is your favourite cell phone brand?

The one question survey had over 1,200 completes and over 160 user comments.

Fortunately nobody in the region is studying the impact social networks are having in people’s productivity, it can’t be good

For more info on the comScore study:

Eighty Five Percent of Brazilian Internet Users Visited a Social Networking Site in September 2008 [WSJ's MarketWatch]

In Livra we believe that having a good time is very important and that through having a good time we can improve the way we work together. At Livra, we traditionally do two annual events. One around mid year and one near Christmas. These events have the following objectives:

• Get to know each other more
• Learn more about Livra and what other people in the team are doing
• Understand where we are as a company and what are the objectives for the future
• Have fun

As part of our culture we always try to find events that are a bit different. In the last year we have gone go-karting, done some karaoke, paintball and bowling among others.

In 2006, we started a tradition that is now integral part of the Livra culture: Every end of year we celebrate the Livra Games (2006, 2007), which basically consists in taking the whole team to a farm in the outskirts of Buenos Aires to spend a day competing in a variety of activities (from Wii Sports, to RC car races to human sized foosball) and closing with an award ceremony, dinner and a party. Livra Games is the conclusion of the year and it’s a perfect blend of competition, team work and fun. We love it.

This year, we inaugurated what we hope will become another great Livra tradition: The Livra Campfire.

Livra Campfire is also celebrated in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, and we also compete divided in teams. But this time the battle develops in the world of ideas. Yes, the main event is a Pecha Kucha Night, where all teams receive the same topic and a jury chooses the best presentation.

What is Pecha Kucha?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecha_Kucha

To summarize, Pecha Kucha (deriving from a Japonese word meaning “chit chat”, is a presentation format in which ideas are organized within 20 slides that can only last 20 seconds. Each slide can only contain images and the speaker must develop his ideas within that frame.

The topic was simple: Had to be about anything related to Livra and the personal passions of each of the team members.

The results where outstanding. We witnessed an incredible display of imagination, originality, passion and dedication. All the presentations were excellent.

There was however only one winning team. Their presentation was a fun “Pecha Kucha” about  office etiquette in Livra. The winners were awarded with a free lunch in a restaurant of choice near the office. Also a latest generation iPod was given to one of the team members.

The event finished with a great Argentine barbacue and what gave name to the event… a great Campfire where we shared some good music and got to know each other a lot better, as someone said… “What happens in Livra Campfire stays in Livra Campfire”.

More photos here:
Livra Campfire 2008 Photos

According to this Knowledge@Wharton article workers and professionals in Latin America are finally overcoming the connectivity gap that had always kept them behind.

The article cites an IDC study showing that 64% of entrepreneurs and independent professionals who use computers in the region are either “hyper-connected” or “more and more connected to the Internet” when they do their jobs. This is higher than in Asia/Pacific (59%), Europe (50%) and the United States (44%).

The old “reasons” for this lag are starting to vanish, these are:

Price barrier

Until recently, Internet service providers were charging an unusually high price for Internet, mobile and other digital services.

Although not totally over (an Iphone 3G with an 18 month contract costs over U$ 600 in Argentina), services are now getting more affordable in the region.

Lack of training

A generalised lack of confidence on technology and poor availability of devices and services meant that the “over 40 year old” generation haven’t been able to grasp computer use.

Language

Over 90% of the information available on the Internet is in English, content in Spanish  and other languages however is growing rapidly.

You can find the whole article here:

LATIN AMERICA: Workers Overcome the Connectivity Gap [IBL]

eMarketer has released a new study that shows the growth US Hispanic Internet users had since last year. The study also projects that by 2012 there will be nearly 30 million.

Something interesting about the US Hispanic population is that, as the article reminds, it is not a homogeneous market. Latinos in the US are spread throughout different states and cities, some speak English and some don’t. And there are various degrees of acculturation, assimilation and income.

It is also important to understand that, as in Latin America, Latinos in the US come from a variety of countries and heritages that do not often share the same costumes, language and habits.

From an online research perspective, it may be the case that the way to approach hispanics in the US may be analog to the way we approach different Latin American respondents - Differently

The full article here:

The US Hispanic Online Populations [eMarketer]

As you now probably heard, Livra Panels has been acquired by Ipsos. Ipsos is the leading market research agency in Latin America and we are very flattered to have been chosen by them.

We have worked for 8 years to build (what we believe is) a fantastic company. We managed to recruit exceptional people, disrupt a whole industry and pioneer in online market research in the region. When we started selling online research in Latin America, there was no one. Just Livra.

Latin America in general is ruled by informal, substandard customer service and quality. But we wouldn’t settle for that. Instead of being “the best we could” we decided to be “just the best”. We didn’t benchmark from the locals. We benchmarked from the best companies in the world, through trial and error we managed to achieve world class quality and service.

But most importantly, we were able to get surrounded by an “above average” group of individuals that helped us achieved our vision… to become the leaders in our thing. But we didn’t settle for this.

So what now?

Well, we had been thinking about partnering with a larger company for a while. It was not our idea, people just started approaching us. Not one, not two, but several. That’s when we realised that we did really have something special. Something that was not easy to replicate. We had discussions with several other companies, some of which we highly respect and learnt a lot from.

And then came along Ipsos, a company that we didn’t know much. We were just aware of how big and successful they were in Latin America. And we slowly started to know them. It was a company founded by ambitious entrepreneurs. It was a company which started with very little but managed to get all the way up to being the best in what they do. Just like us.

But then we met some of them and we found them to be exceptional, incredibly professional people. People who were not boasting about their accomplishments, but mostly flattering about our little achievement. People who were open to share their insight and most importantly willing to listen to our ideas and vision about the future of this industry.

They “didn’t have us at hello” like in the movie. They worked their way into us. And did it very well.

They understood from the beginning that to make Livra truly great and global they needed to respect our culture, independence and “weird ways“. Livra will remain a specialized independent unit within Ipsos. We will keep doing what we do. Only better, faster and with more determination than ever.

We will continue to go out of our way in order to please our clients. That’s exactly what keeps us going, and it always will.

Thank you for holding our hand all the way through childhood. It’s time to become mature, but keeping that child inside. And that’s a good thing.

Thank you!

Diego Meller  & Martín Añazco