Invest in CTV as Traditional TV Viewership Shifts to Streaming. Connected TV (CTV) is on the rise in Latin America as viewing habits go digital. Consumers are cutting the cord in favor of digital streaming services. While the majority of digital video viewers stream on mobile devices, CTV usage is becoming more commonplace.

This report explores the impact the pandemic has had on our latest regional estimates and trends for total media, traditional media, digital, and mobile ad spending in six markets in Latin America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.

Latin America’s enduringly strong growth in sub OTT usership can be traced to its two largest markets: Brazil and Mexico. Both countries have embraced these services at a higher rate than what may be expected given their levels of economic development. Brazil and Mexico will boast the fourth and fifth most sub OTT users in the world this year, with 70.6 million and 43.8 million, respectively.

Some notable ones include deals with Telecom Argentina, with Vivo and Globoplay in Brazil, and with Izzi and Telmex in Mexico. Disney+ has also teamed up with ecommerce giant Mercado Libre to offer consumers a free subscription period based on their level of Mercado Puntos, or Market Points in English.

Smart TV ownership also rose by several percentage points between H1 2020 and H1 2021, to 49.0%. That share was well above 50% in several demographics, including internet users ages 35 to 64, those in medium- and higher-income households, and those living in suburban areas. Smartwatches and smart wristbands posted gains too.

Smart TV ownership was also high by global standards, at 59.2%—about 3 percentage points greater than in H1 2020. In total, 97.7% of respondents said they had streamed video of some kind in the month prior to polling. This figure is also amplified by the inclusion of YouTube in the survey’s video category for the first time this year.

Adults in developing countries (Brazil, the Philippines, South African, Turkey, and Vietnam) were much more likely than their counterparts in developed countries (Australia, France, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, and the US) to say they are either extremely likely and very likely to switch from cash to digital payment in the next 12 months, by a ratio of 76% to 47%, according to a March 2021 survey by

Smart TVs are well established in most countries with robust, reliable communications networks. More than four in 10 internet users polled in North America, Latin America, and Western Europe said they owned a smart TV in H1 2020, though France was below that threshold.

Meanwhile, smart TVs have made inroads with internet users in Colombia: 57.0% of respondents owned one in H1 2020 compared with 55.8% last year. As in 2019, uptake was much lower in low-income households and suburban areas, but reached 72.6% of internet users in high-income households, up from 67.7% last year.

WhatsApp Pay is currently only available in Brazil and select users in India and only supports P2P payments. But WhatsApp Pay’s rollout in India and Brazil has been rocky, as both countries’ governments temporarily suspended the service because of privacy and anti-trust concerns.

Smart TVs are gaining ground as high-quality in-home viewing becomes a must-have. In all but a handful of countries, smart TV ownership rose by several percentage points YoY. In many cases, that lifted penetration above 50% for the first time. Japan was the most striking outlier; just 9.0% of internet users there owned a smart TV this year.

This happened despite the likelihood that Roku will see more advertisers flock to connected TV (CTV) as a result of Apple’s privacy changes. Why it’s important: Apple’s iOS privacy updates have had a “modest impact on YouTube revenues,” Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said—but positive notes like that are outliers.

In Brazil, for example, shutdown and quarantine measures were left to city and state officials to decide, while in Argentina, a nationwide lockdown was ordered in March. As of September, some stay-at-home measures were still in place in Buenos Aires, the nation’s capital.

At the country level, close to 60% of respondents in Colombia and Mexico expressed an inclination for in-stream ads, while the majority of those in Argentina and Brazil favored pre-roll or post-roll ads. Consumers in Latin America may be willing to watch ads, but that doesn’t mean AVOD service providers should be complacent about the ad experience they provide.

The mobile ad market has become as big as TV, connected TV (CTV), desktop/laptop, radio, out-of-home, newspapers, and magazines combined. And mobile is set to claim still more share in future years. Google and Meta still reign supreme, even as more and more globally significant digital ad players emerge.