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.

Almost 84% of US households will have connected TVs in 2022, per our forecast, opening the door to shoppable TV. NBC, for example, just launched a series of livestream shopping shows, which could grow spending in the category. We estimate that half of US adults now drive a connected car, which could push in-car spending to $1 billion by 2023, per Gartner.

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.

The popularity of digital advertising via connected TVs (CTVs), for instance, has created something of a counterweight to mobile’s continuing share grab in places like North America. Ad-supported video-on-demand (AVOD) services and app-based digital video viewing via CTVs have not taken off in China as much as they have in the US. If this situation starts to change, we will reassess our forecast.

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.

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.

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.

For the most part, the top 10 growth countries are the same as they were pre-pandemic: India, Indonesia, Russia, China, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico. Spain and Finland are new entrants to the list this year, while Italy will move up to the No. 4 spot. In the latter three countries, early stay-at-home measures increased the need to communicate via mobile.

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.

This report explores the impact COVID-19 will have 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.

While this is partly a function of the higher cost of CTV ads compared with linear TV, audience migration to streaming services and interest in sports contribute to the trend.

For instance, consumers can now pay with credit cards and PayPal via their LG Smart TVs by setting up an LG TV account and inputting their payment information once. And Cadillac has integrated Apple’s Siri voice assistant into several of its car models to allow users to make voice payments on the go. Lending.