Relationships drive success in Latin America

AV Magazine

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Close relationships with local suppliers, distributors and contractors can save a project from catastrophic failures in Latin America

Stretching from Tijuana in Mexico to Ushuaia in the southern tip of Argentina, Latin America is a huge region for which there is no ‘one size fits all’. The entire region is dynamic but exhibits different potential and characteristics depending on where you look. The clearest signal is the industry’s own, the first InfoComm América Latina, held in Mexico City in 2025, sold out. This October’s edition has expanded floor space by around 60%.

“Brazil and Mexico have a large volume of projects with very high demands and requirements,” offers Adi Neves at DPA Microphones. “Argentina, Chile and Colombia exhibit the same demands, among fewer projects. Central America is growing; Panama leads the corporate market and Guatemala benefits from a strong Houses of Worship vertical as it has some of the Americas’ largest sanctuaries. Colombia and Chile drive some of the largest growth in the area, supported by progressive business outlook and foreign investments.”

AVIXA analysis
AVIXA’s 2025 analysis forecasts Latin America CAGR at 4.3% through to 2030, against 3.9% globally and 3.6% for North America, for a market worth around $14bn. Demand concentrates in conferencing and collaboration, the largest category; security and surveillance, the fastest-growing; live events and digital signage.

“Two things hold it back: tariff and currency complexity, and the fact that AV and IT expertise have historically sat in separate organisations,” says Moises Montano, sales director, Netgear Enterprise. “I would not put that second one on the integrators. Our job as manufacturers is to make configuration simple enough that networked AV behaves correctly without deep networking knowledge.”

Camila Otero for Lightware judges Latin America as “demanding, price-sensitive and highly competitive, but increasingly strategic,” adding, “Mexico leads in scale; Brazil offers major potential despite import complexity; Colombia, Chile, Peru and Costa Rica continue to create strong opportunities.”

Speaking for Renkus-Heinz, western regional sales manager, Garrison Parkin reckons the region is in a “rebuilding phase” with a significant number of AV projects underway. “The market is more competitive than ever, with more integrators and manufacturers chasing these opportunities.”

Keeping pace with North America
North America leads the world in almost all areas of technology and how it is deployed across applications. “What we’re seeing now is Latin American countries working to keep pace with these developments,” adds Parkin. “In some of the smaller markets, we’re seeing strong activity in the corporate sectors. Local and regional government also represents an important area of opportunity.”

“What really resonates with AV project teams in LatAm are IP/IT-specific education and proofs of concept that demonstrate the potential and resilience of networked solutions,” finds Chris Scheck, head of marketing content at Lawo. “We are in talks with customers in Paraguay and Venezuela whose junior engineers are eager to learn as much as they can [to] promote IP networking internally. Like elsewhere in the world, the younger generation is ready for IP.”

Mexico
As the most North America-adjacent market, integrators in Mexico work to US timelines and procurement norms. AVIXA estimates the size of the Mexico market at roughly $3bn, growing at above 5% a year through to 2028.

The country hosted 13 World Cup matches across venues in Mexico City, Guadalajara, and Monterrey this summer. “The Estadio Azteca came out of an 18-month rebuild that touched almost everything an AV integrator cares about,” Montano says, citing a superior wi-fi footprint, exterior screens and a 340-speaker sound system.

Guadalajara took on an extensive upgrade of its own, though Monterrey needed comparatively little. “All of it was specified for the highest-pressure broadcast month in world sport, and those venues will run league football and concerts on the same systems for years.”

Mexican AV culture is “mature”, according to Lightware which has strengthened relationships with Tecso Pro, Meitec Led and Centro de Conectividad across ProAV and IT channels.

From Leyard’s perspective, AV is undergoing a process of expansion and maturation. “Although each country has different levels of maturity, we are seeing a common trend,” says LatAm CEO, Odair Tremante.

“Customers, integrators, and specifiers are becoming more discerning. Hybrid collaboration, virtual production, retail media, real-time monitoring, and immersive experiences are already driving investment in countries such as Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina.”

He believes a significant share of future AV investment will be connected to the modernisation of infrastructure and experience-driven spaces across airports, stadia, arenas, museums and corporate environments.

“We expect increasing integration of LED with architecture, data, management systems, and AI,” he says. “This comprehensive approach will enable the development of more functional and intelligent spaces – and even cities – in which technology responds to the real needs of both operations and
people.”

Live experiences culture
Jorge Sobenes, sales director, Ross Video confirms the rapid shift to experience-driven environments. “Live experiences have always been central to Latin American culture. Today, organisations are investing in higher-quality, immersive environments while still demanding simple-to-operate solutions that deliver long-term value within local budgets.

Following the World Cup, “which highlighted the importance of world-class venue technology,” Ross expects continued investment across sports venues, museums, shopping centres, and entertainment destinations.

“Organisations are looking to create more immersive experiences, making integrated AV, production and control technologies key differentiators.”

Bogotá, Santiago, and São Paulo are scaling electric bus fleets and modernising metro and terminal infrastructure. “Each programme carries digital signage, passenger information, and command-and-control requirements,” says Montano.

AWS has committed more than $4bn to a data centre in Chile and Google has opened one in Mexico. “These are IT projects, but each comes with a network operations centre and ProAV control rooms,” says Montano.

No single formula
Outside the larger markets, opportunities abound. “Some of the most significant opportunities in my career have come from countries that competitors chose to overlook,” Montano shares. “That has always struck me as a gift to whoever is willing to show up.”

Guatemala “works as a regional gateway,” he notes, with integrators there often covering several Central American countries from one office. Ecuador is “early stage but structurally ready,” (the Smart City Ecuador initiative to deploy smart technologies across municipalities, is endorsed by the Ecuadorian Municipal Association and the Inter-American Development Bank). Paraguay may be a “modest economy”, but Asunción hosted an edition of the ALOOH LATAM Forum in 2025, and a local industry that “is organised well beyond its size.”

Montano concludes, “In all three, one well-executed reference project can define a brand’s reputation for years, and the right distributor relationship in a neighbouring hub can open several countries at once.”

There is no single formula for Latin America, Karim Galib, Barco’s sales director emphasises; “Successful strategies need to be localised.

“In markets such as Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, AV is becoming increasingly strategic. The conversation is moving beyond hardware and individual meeting rooms toward user experience, interoperability, standardisation, business outcomes and employee satisfaction and retention.

“Central America markets can be surprisingly attractive. Although smaller in scale, they have sophisticated enterprise, financial services and hospitality customers. These markets are highly relationship-driven and channel-led, making strong local partnerships particularly important.”

Jay Wallace, who handles sales for Clear-Com, has seen increased business in practically all regional markets. The company provided an Eclipse matrix for a broadcast client in Paraguay and is working on a large industrial intercom system in Ecuador.

“We’re installing multiple FreeSpeak II wireless systems for a nuclear power plant service in Argentina, a large matrix intercom for a HoW in Brazil, and solutions for a corporate client in Mexico.”

Higher education is a strengthening vertical for Lightware, especially in Colombia. “Our proof-of-concept deployments have helped universities validate interoperability, reduce technical uncertainty and turn ideas into real projects,” explains Otero. “This approach has contributed to several opportunities within Colombian higher education. We are also seeing momentum in Brazilian universities around AV-over-IP and more flexible learning environments.”

Brazil
All user interfaces and codes must be rewritten in Portuguese for devices operating in Brazil, notes Neves, but Portuguese-speaking in a sea of Spanish language markets is the least of the territory’s distinctions.

“Brazil is a world unto itself,” affirms Montano. “The language barrier only exists for companies that refuse to learn the market and hire locally. The channel is large, sophisticated, and self-contained, and operationally it is the most complex.”

AVIXA ranks it the region’s largest, so the prize is proportional to the effort. “The scale of its projects often match mature markets,” reports Sobenes.

Respondents insist Brazil should be treated as a distinct market within Latin America. “The country has continental dimensions, a specific tax structure, its own import processes, and regulations that can vary between states and municipalities,” notes Tremante.

Sao Paulo’s Clean City Law, for example, establishes specific rules for outdoor advertising and directly affects DOOH projects.

“In addition, serving such a vast territory requires access to technical support, spare parts, and qualified partners across different regions.”

The level of tariffs applied to goods entering the country means excessive bureaucracy and high import taxes.

“This can make US-manufactured technology significantly more expensive,” says Parkin. “As a result, our activity there is currently more limited than in some other Latin American markets.”

Tariffs can “push customers toward cloud or locally assembled COTS [commercial off the shelf] solutions, driving manufacturers to shift focus toward software-based, recurring-licencing models,” reports Jason Barden, Riedel Communications’ sales director.

That said, the Brazilian market is also the most diverse, “with projects from corporate buildings to higher education facilities, and a healthy HoW segment,” says Neves.

The first Latin America country to complete an analogue shutoff by 2016, Brazil is now redesigning its terrestrial transmission system for deployment of TV3.0 (DTV+), for 4K transmission, immersive audio, and broadband-integrated interactivity.

“Expect demand for native UHD and HDR content, plus more advertising production as broadcasters personalise delivery,” Barden says. Ahead of the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup, hosted across eight Brazilian cities, expect deployments spanning broadcast centres, LED displays, security command centres and 5G infrastructure.

“The Women’s World Cup will almost certainly drive important investments in and around stadiums, public-viewing areas and in broadcast,” confirms Scheck. “Without doubt, Brazil has the highest adoption rate of ST2110 technology. In other Latin America countries, usually for budget reasons, clients prefer to evolve their infrastructure in small steps.”

Don’t view 33 as one
The reality, Scheck warns, is Latin American countries “tend to differ quite significantly, and the political and economic climate in the region is often unpredictable, with sometimes stark currency fluctuations against the dollar and the Euro. Carefully tailoring the solutions to your potential customers is therefore of the utmost importance.”

It’s self-evident that Latin America should never be approached as a single market but as 33. “Success depends on understanding each country’s business culture, procurement process, and regulations,” says Barden.

Aside from Brazil’s taxation regime, Argentina recently eliminated its SEDI import licensing scheme which means advance import declarations are no longer required, but Mexico requires NOM [compliance and safety marking] certification for importers.

“Local partners help manage these differences, but cultural understanding matters more,” Barden says.

“Companies investing in partner enablement and ongoing customer engagement will outperform those relying on occasional visits.”

“Don’t treat [Latin America] as one market,” urges Galib. “Technology matters, but trust, relationships and long-term commitment remain fundamental to doing business successfully across the region.”

The most important advice from Parkin is “be present. It’s important to spend time with customers, integrators and distributors while building direct relationships rather than simply taking orders from a distance.”

“This requires a long-term commitment,” says Tremante, “understanding the particularities of each country, developing partners, training teams, and maintaining technical support and component availability after delivery. It means taking responsibility for the outcome, supporting the customer’s evolution, and remaining accessible throughout the project’s entire lifecycle.”

Patience is the key for Wallace. “Expect long sales cycles. Be prepared to spend time on the ground to listen to the client and learn their workflow. This is an exciting and interesting part of the world. Anticipate complications and embrace the challenge.”

Montano advises, “Learn the market before you try to sell into it. In a relationship-driven market, reputation is the whole business, and nothing damages it faster than being visibly behind.”

Finally, don’t be afraid to push high-end solutions. Neves advises, “Even a small portion of a large population can prove to be a valuable revenue generator.”