Microsoft said Monday that underpin its strategy to grow strongly in the segment of Internet advertising through Latin America, where this medium is undeveloped compared to other markets.
"For Microsoft, Latin America is one of the best public in the world. If the percentage of Internet advertising in the region were greater, we would automatically much of the business," said Darren Huston, corporate vice president of Consumer and On Line at Microsoft, in an interview today to Efe.
From first visit to Argentina, the Canadian director commented that, in the context of the global crisis, "Online advertising is doing well, while television remains and graphics and posters have gone down."
According to Huston, "the overall online advertising is growing in all countries", while noting that the use of this channel is mixed in nations like Argentina, which represents only 2% of total advertising investment, while in EE. UU. such participation is 15% and in the UK is 25%.
"Brazil has a 6% but the rest of Latin America is between 1% and 2%, which is very low in relation to Internet use in these countries," said Huston, who on Thursday will participate in the presentation Windows 7 in Brazil, one of the places chosen for the worldwide launch of the new operating system.
The manager said that Microsoft has many "levers of growth" in the region, but most in terms of increasing the percentage of Internet advertising: "Going from 2% to 5% would be a very big business for us," said.
To this end, the company founded by Bill Gates, will work with those responsible for the areas of advertising business, first with large multinational brands with presence in Latin America and then with local firms.
In addition to Internet advertising, Microsoft points to the dynamic segment of mobile phones in the region, offering applications for these devices.
Advertising and phones are a source of growth in Latin America, where Microsoft has a high penetration rate (70%) in products such as Hotmail and Messenger of the 175 million Internet users in the region.
The Internet business segment is growing at Microsoft, which began in 1975 and based its initial expansion products off line including Windows and Office.
"In 1995 we started building a lot of assets''on line'', such as MSN, Hotmail and Bing, who began to expand at a faster rate than off-line''products.''And the way to make money with these products, which are free to consumers, is selling advertising, "said Huston.
According to the manager, Microsoft gets annually about 3,000 million dollars in profits by advertising on the Internet, "which represents between 5% and 10% of the profits" of the company, a percentage that "in the future should be 25% .
Huston confirmed that Microsoft will launch next year a new version of Office pack and that "soon" will open two U.S. stores in Mission Viejo (California) and Scottsdale (Arizona).
"We have to open them and see what the reaction. If this works, we are global, so we'll go anywhere," said the manager about the possibility of opening more stores in other countries.
No comments:
Post a Comment