I am excited to announce that my first report that draws from our Latin American Technographics® data — entitled Understanding Latin American Online Consumers— is now available. (For Forrester clients who do not subscribe to our Latin American Technographics data, there is a shorter version of the report that you can access here.) I hope that our readers find a lot of valuable takeaways in this report. One aspect I want to highlight here is that understanding the Latin American market requires a long-term commitment.

Although the Internet has been around for almost two decades, Latin American’s active presence in the online world is relatively new. Our data shows that 58% of metropolitan Brazilians and 53% of metropolitan Mexicans are online at least monthly or more. While these may sound like exciting numbers for developing markets, two caveats stand out to me: 1) non-metropolitan populations will have much lower penetration, and 2) consumers in these metropolitan markets are just starting to familiarize themselves with the Internet — as evidenced by their generally lower Internet activity compared with other regions we cover. However, certain trends, such as the use of social media, suggest ways in which companies can connect with certain Latin American consumers online.