Bango announces further investment across Latin America with key hires to its São Paulo office and the opening of an office in Bogota, Colombia. Expanding the Bango presence in the region will support Bango store partners, which include Amazon, Google and Microsoft.
The content hungry Latin American region is a focus for the major app stores, which is home to some of the fastest-growing smartphone markets worldwide. Bango technology is used by the major stores to enable millions more consumers to enjoy full access to digital content and services including video, music, gaming, productivity software and more.
The one-click payment provided by Bango enables anyone with a mobile bill to charge content and services to their phone account. No credit card or banking details are necessary, opening up the vast digital content ecosystem to millions of unbanked Latin Americans. Bango technology is able to charge pre-paid bills as well as contract customers, which is vital to unlock the customer base across Latin America.
“Using the Bango Platform, the first Latin American launch of carrier billing in the Google Play store was enabled in 2015,” said Anil Malhotra, Chief Marketing Officer at Bango. “As part of Bango’s long term commitment to its store partners and operators, Bango has grown its presence in Latin America with key technical and business development hires”.
Marcio Mattos is one of a number of recent appointments to expand the integration capability within Bango, joining as a Senior Solutions Architect. Located in Sao Paolo and on-site with customers, Marcio provides technical and integration capabilities to mobile operators, using new innovative Bango technology to fast track integrations.
Mariajosé Vargas has joined the Business Development team and is based in Bogota, Colombia. Joining Bango from Telefonica, she is perfectly positioned to understand the challenges of mobile operators who want to grow new revenues from the success of global app stores through the Bango Platform.
Partnering with more major app stores than any else, the Bango Platform is the industry standard for operators to enable carrier billing for their customers. With declining featurephone usage and traditional Value Added Services (VAS) revenues for old content types such as ringtones and wallpapers, mobile operators across the region are increasingly turning to Bango to help them innovate to capture new business with the leading online players.
Mobile device penetration is high in Latin America, with 690 million mobile connections in Q32017, smartphones accounted for 60% of these (GSMA, 2017). Mobile internet subscriptions continue strong growth as digital access and engagement become increasingly important across the region. Smartphone features and capabilities have become increasingly sophisticated, resulting in a rich, immersive content ecosystem. Titles including Google Play Music, Pokémon GO, Clash Royale and Netflix regularly top the best sellers list for carrier billed content in the region.