According to a recent study by Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a Rio de Janeiro-based higher education institution, there are more smartphones, tablets and laptops in Brazil than there are people. As of May 2018, there were 306 million such devices for a population of 207 million, which has an average real monthly income of less than 2200 reais ($568). As a point of comparison, the US has 1.28 smartphones per capita against Brazil’s 1.06, but it can count on an average monthly income about seven times higher than the Latin American country’s. Including other portable devices, this equates to an average of 1.5 devices for every single Brazilian from which to access mobile or online-based services on the go, a figure comfortably higher than the global average and set to grow further. The number of smartphones alone in Brazil is expected to rise from 220 million today to 235 million by May 2019.
This is good news for Brazilian banks, which are pushing their digital offering, and for the new generation of digital-only names. But despite deep mobile penetration, there are obstacles to consider, ranging from the complexities of the local banking sector to legislation that only recently facilitated the proliferation of digital banking products.
