EFE- At least 56% of Latin Americans are connected to the internet, 10% more than the world average despite the lack of technological infrastructure, reveled the study “Uses of the Internet in Latin America” presented September 29th in Panama City.

The investigation, with an error margin of less than 2.5%, according to its director Venezuelan Carlos Jiménez, told EFE, this study was done through 5000 online surveys in 15 countries, this represents a sample of 98% of the population, but he warned, “we can’t generalize”.

While in 2011 the world average of people connected to the internet was of 32%, in Latin America 37% and in Panama 30%, for this 2016 the internet users represent a 46% globally, 56% in Latin America and 57% of Panamanians, he detailed during his presentation.

Jimenez grouped the Latin American countries according to the percentage of internet users: Uruguay and Chile are of 70%, Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador and Puerto Rico are between a 61%-70%, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Dominican Republic and Venezuela have 51%-60%; Bolivia, Paraguay and Peru 41%-50% and finally with less than 40% El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

He explained that the advance compared by country has rised due to the “digital gap” that still exists, and that now is based in the limitation there is of access to broadband due to the little penetration of the fiber optic, and not because it isn’t available or people are unaware of its existence.

“The television is still the main means” , he admitted, and in Latin America “people still prefer to go to the point of sale”, instead of purchasing a product using eCommerce.

He stated that “ecommerce is growing, banking is growing, but those who buy do so from their laptop, and they get the information from the traditional media, mobiles are still used with a social purpose, to share”

For the expert in economy and marketing, the study of the users in social media requires of a segmentation of the audience in each platform, because they have different communication codes, Facebook is not the same as Snapchat, nor Twitter than Instagram, he clarified.

It’s bad to “Communicate without knowing the audience”, this just leads to a waste of resources because messages are not going to capture their attention.

“The region is missing companies that interact and communicate with their clients, they want that, companies to pay attention to them” said Jimenez.

In Latin America 84% of the internet users use the email, 83% social media, 73% use it to read the news, 57% for the banking operations, 62% to chat, 62% to watch videos and 57% to get information about jobs.

“Because audiences are fragmented, almost to an individual level, the challenge of the companies is to find a way to generate experiences with the consumer” , he concluded.