作者：Regina Leuwer

据移动策略公司VisionMobile发布的最新报告显示，拉美地区的智能手机覆盖率最低（17%），低于亚太或非洲/中东地区。这有点出乎意料，因为此片大陆是全球发展最快的地区之一。我们确实有必要深入探究其社交和手机游戏领域发展情况。

社交网络大陆

拉美地区共有20个国家，5.8亿人口，其在线用户的人数是2.05亿，社交网络的覆盖率是81.9%。此外，拉美电子商务在2003-2009年间的增长率高达1054%（游戏邦注：此数据来自comScore）。Facebook主导拉美的社交网络市场，共有用户9700万。在智利，Facebook的覆盖率高达90.9%，是拉美Facebook网络渗透程度最高的国家。而Google+的发展势头也非常迅猛。最近，巴西发行商Vostu刚将自己的即时足球游戏《GolMania》投放Google+。

Orkut仍主导巴西社交网络市场

Facebook Orkut from topnews.in

巴西是拉美最大的市场，其总人口达2亿，网民有4100万。91%的巴西网民都使用社交网络。据comScore数据显示，女性用户在此投入的时间更多，覆盖巴西总社交网络时间的58.7%。据Global Collect报告显示，巴西2011年共有活跃游戏用户3500万，他们在游戏中的投入总计20亿美元。在这些消费中，社交游戏、休闲游戏和手机游戏各占2.2亿、3亿和1.8亿美元。据comScore数据显示，在巴西，Orkut依然是最受欢迎的社交网络，有多达3570万的用户——用户数量相比去年增长20%。但Facebook正加紧发展步伐，目前有用户3050万。

内容和付费渠道本土化程度有待提高

本土化非常重要，尤其是对巴西市场而言。据调查显示，95%的用户倾向体验葡萄牙语的内容。拉美的开发平台很多，包括Vostu、Mentez、 Three Melons及Atommica最近推出的交叉网络Jampp。拉美用户愿意在社交网络中掏钱，但数额比美国用户少。据阿根廷发行公司Atommica联合创始人Diego Meller表示，19%用户的消费金额少于5%，41%用户的消费金额介于6-11美元之间。这片市场存在的另一难题是缺乏稳固的统一付费渠道（游戏邦注：据悉，只有不到16%的拉美社交玩家通过信用卡购买虚拟商品），手机支付、借记卡和银行转帐是该地区较为普遍的支付方式。对开发商而言，这意味着他们需要应对拉美国家各种不同供应商及支付服务。

智能手机迎头赶上

低智能手机覆盖率只是对该地区的粗略描述：拉美地区2010年售出智能手机3100万部。随着更多平价设备的涌现（主要是Android设备），此数据有望得到提高：据Yankee Group调查显示，截至2015年，智能手机将覆盖总手持设备销量的48%，而2010年的这一比例仅8%。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Latin America – The Awakening of a ‘Sleeping Giant’

By Regina Leuwer

A recent report from mobile strategy firm VisionMobile listed Latin America as the region with the lowest smartphone penetration (17%), even lower than Asia-Pacific or Africa/Middle East. This came as a little surprise, because the continent is one of the most booming areas of the world. It’s worth to take a closer look at the ‘sleeping giant’ – especially its social and mobile gaming landscape.

A social networking continent

Latin America has 580 million inhabitants in 20 countries, an online population of 205 million people and social network reach of 81.9%. At the same time, e-commerce is exploding with 1,054% growth rate from 2003 to 2009 (according to comScore data). Facebook leads the social networking market in Latin America, attracting more than 97 million visitors. In Chile, Facebook even reaches 90.9 percent of all online users, ranking as the most penetrated market in Latin America. Google+ is also gaining momentum. Most recently, Brazilian publisher Vostu brought its real-time football (soccer) game GolMania to Google+.

The region’s powerhouse Brazil still ruled by Orkut

Latin America’s largest singular market is Brazil with 200 million people, and an internet population of 41 million. Social networks are used by 91% of online Brazilians. Female users spend more time on them, and accounted for 58.7 percent of all social networking time spent, according to comScore. The country has 35 million active gamers who will spend $2 billion on games in 2011, according to a report by. Out of this sum, $220 million is spent on social gaming, $300 million on casual games and $180 million on mobile.

In Brazil, Orkut is still ranked as the most-visited social networking destination, reaching 35.7 million users –an increase of 20 percent from the previous year, according to data by comScore. Facebook is catching up though with 30.5M users.

Content and payments need to be localized

Localization seems to be very important, especially important in Brazil. According to a study Atommica, 95% of users prefer to play in Portuguese. There is a rich developer scene with Vostu, Mentez, Three Melons (acquired last year by Playdom), and Atommica recently launched cross promotion network Jampp.

Latin American users do spend money on social games, but smaller amounts than players in the US – 19% of users who pay spend under $5 and 41% spend $6 to $11, according to Diego Meller, co-founder at Argentinian publisher Atommica, who offered us some interesting facts. Another difficulty are the lack of strong unified payment channels – under 10% of social gamers buy virtual goods using a credit card. Mobile payments, debit cards and bank deposits are more common. For developers this means that they have to deal with different providers and tools for different Latin American countries.

Smartphones will catch up

The low smartphone penetration is just a snapshot: 31 million smartphones have been sold in Latin America in 2010. With more and more affordable  devices -especially for Android- these numbers are expected to surge: By 2015, 48% of total handset sales will be smartphones, according to research by Yankee Group, up from 8% in 2010.（Source：socialgamesobserver）