Brazilian Industry Trends To Possibly Drive M2M Market

Brazil has the fifth largest population in the world and with new tax cuts on M2M terminals recently enforced, Brazil is arguably the next biggest M2M market. With new industry trends taking off in Brazil, there is no doubt the market can grow dramatically in the next couple of years.

One of the major trends in Brazil is Telehealth services. According to reports from BMI, major investors have been eying Brazil as as a potential for Telecare services. One of the country's biggest mobile operators acquired Axismed, a Brazilian chronic care management company. This aims to provide digital healthcare services such as health monitoring, outpatient care and self care applications. Axismed reported that their services has reduced cost of care for chronic patients by 30 percent both for health care providers and private companies. Another project launched in line with Telecare services is GE Healthcare's Urban eHealth Project. This project provides medical practitioners access to various tools that will help them measure patient welfare. Clinicians are also given access to a portable that they can carry around that they can work with necessary devices. This project was undertaken primarily in Santa Marta favela in Rio de Janeiro.

Other developments such as Axismed's biometric data transmission via connected devices at the patient's homes is supported by Telefonica Digital. This initiative is aimed at greatly reducing the cost of clinicians and physicians trying to gather data from patients. It also saves time for them as patients may no longer need to go to clinics in order to provide information. PwC, an international professional services provider, reported that telehealth application development market in Brazil could reach $46.6 million in 2015. Meantime, GSMA also highlighted that these projects can aid over 45 million Brazilians and save about $14.1 billion in unnecessary healthcare costs.

Other trends in the region include mobile commerce, Telecom infrastructure investments and more MVNO developments in 2014. E-commerce has been increasingly flourishing market. However, mobile carriers are now venturing into bringing m-commerce introducing new mobile commerce platforms that will allow customers to pay their bills, make purchases, transfer funds and make cash withdrawals. In 2013, a joint initiative of Banco Bradesco and Claro introduced a pilot mobile payment system called My Money Claro. This will initially be available in select cities such as Rio de Janeiro, Bellford Roxo, Sao Joano de Meriti, Duque de Caxias and Goiania. Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs and Pátria Investimentos, along with six other investors will help in the construction of telecommunication towers. The two towers will cost about $320 to $820 million. The completion of this project will attract more investors in and outside of Brazil and the region will largely benefit from it. Currently, Brazil has approximately 61,000 telecommunication towers and still requires 6,680 new ones to improve network coverage and services. And a new MVNO business model is also set to be transplanted into the market. Brazilian mobile operators are still holding discussions over the new platform and expects to close the deal hopefully in the near future.

Clovis Lacerda, CEO of LeadingQuest and Parlacom, one of the major M2M solution providers in Brazil, believes that these major trends in the region only marks the beginning of the much anticipated growth of the M2M market in Brazil. He said that as the telehealth services expand in Brazil, more medical service providers and companies will recognize its benefits, especially on how this can bring down the cost. Installing devices and health monitoring equipment in a patient's home which physicians can remotely monitor, will surely save not only millions of money but also millions of lives. This is something that M2M players like Parlacom, are very eager to see grow rapidly in the next few years. "There is no doubt that eHealth will surely drive revenue for the M2M market in Brazil." Lacerda eagerly said.

He further noted that as Brazil strengthens its telecommunications network by adding more towers, it will likely boost the M2M market as well. "Mobility and connectivity are two very important aspects of M2M communication. The towers will not only provide better connections and better coverage for mobile devices but will also add more flexibility to our solutions." Lacerda said.