There’s big news for SMS marketing in Latin American countries today, as the “Latin America Common Short Code” initiative announced in March by the CTIA has gone live. The initiative provides a much-needed centralized CSC registry process for all of Latin America — a high-growth region in terms of mobile technology.
The initiative is supported by all major operators in the region and uses technology provided by Syniverse Technologies, a company that provides a wealth of telecommunication services to over 800 mobile operators, ISPs and other enterprises around the world. Syniverse has built a short code system that every single operator in Latin America can tap into that provides 6-digit short codes that work the same in any country, as long as your operator is part of the CSC initiative. With the new system in place, marketers will be able to reach an additional 500 million people within Latin American countries.
This is a big deal for that region, as SMS is a wildly popular medium. The CTIA claims that the rate of SMS use in Latin America is almost twice as high as other regions, with almost 70% of mobile subscribers sending texts at least twice weekly. With the mobile industry still at its early stages within the region, this initiative marks a huge opportunity for marketers to leverage SMS to reach massive additional markets.