Alexandra Borgeaud
Research expert covering cybersecurity and tech in Latin America
Get in touch with us nowThe reign of Samsung
Over recent years, the South Korean tech conglomerate, Samsung, has maintained a market share of over 42 percent in South America, making it the leading smartphone manufacturer in the region. When it comes to Chinese smartphone manufacturers, Huawei has been one of the most popular smartphone brands in Latin America, accounting for over 20 percent of the market in Peru, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico by the end of 2020. However, 2021 saw the rise of Xiaomi smartphones. Despite being present in the Latin American market for a couple of years as an affordable brand, Xiaomi surpassed Apple’s market share in South America at the end of 2022, becoming the third most popular brand in the region, after Samsung and Motorola.Mobile data traffic on the rise
The smartphone adoption rate in Latin America amounted to 79 percent in 2022, with Brazil having the highest rate, followed by Argentina and Mexico. Consequently, this led to monthly mobile data traffic in Latin America of 5.3 exabytes in 2022 - forecast to increase by around 350 percent in the next five years. While so far smartphone activities have concentrated on communication and entertainment, rising smartphone adoption is bound to increase the integration of services such as mobile commerce, mobile banking, or mobile health into the Latin American reality. For instance, the number of mobile gaming users in South America stood at over 112 million people as of 2022 and is forecast to increase to just under 140 million users by 2027. Another factor leading to the growing number of smartphones in Latin America is the deployment of 5G networks in the continent, expected to translate into an exponential increase to over 395 million 5G mobile subscriptions by 2028.
