Still, other barriers that could hamper this projected growth continue to exist, including slow connections, high costs of telecommunication services and access devices, and concern over privacy protection and security of online data, speakers said. Partly because of these reasons, Jupiter slightly lowered its forecast for consumer e-commerce spending in the region, Graves said. Graves highlighted that most of the Latin Americans who will be online in 2006 aren't online today, proof that this is still a nascent and very fast-growing market. His company estimates that 21 million people in the region used the Internet by the end of 2000, equivalent to 4 percent of the region's population, but that is expected to grow to 86 million people by 2006, or 15 percent of the population. The challenge for Internet companies, such as Internet service providers, portals and online retailers, is to win a share of this ever-increasing mass of users coming online in Latin America, Graves said.
Convenience is king.
The convenience of using the Internet is becoming a necessity in Latin America. Those who have said that his company came late to the region don't understand that a company such as AOL Latin America doesn't have to steal customers from its competitors, because the growth in new users is so phenomenal, he said. AOL Latin America was founded in late 1998 and launched its first service in Brazil in late 1999. AOL Latin America announced Tuesday that its subscriber base increased to 647,000 in its first fiscal quarter of 2001, ended March 31, compared with 449,000 in the immediately preceding quarter ended Dec. 31. Yet, that 647,000 subscriber figure includes people who are on a free trial period.