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At the Latin America Broadband Forum 2016, An Jian, President of Huawei Global Wireless Network Marketing and Solutions delivered a speech "Digitalization: Catalyst for Economic Take-off in Latin America". He stressed broadband construction as a crucial foundation for operators’ ICT transformation recalling the Chinese saying "Pave the way for future fortune."
An Jian emphasized the vital role of broadband construction and digital transformation for economic growth, pointing out: "Broadband popularization stimulates GDP growth, and digital transformation gives birth to new industries and a digital ecosystem.” ITU statistics reveal that as global economic growth slows down, over 140 countries have drawn out national broadband strategies to facilitate ICT transformation.
Based on the different stages of economic digitalization in different countries, An Jian introduced Huawei’s self-developed Global Connectivity Index (GCI)1 and explained the evaluation criteria. He analyzed the GCIs of Latin America and proposed future direction and measures for stimulating economic digitalization in the region.
"The economic digitalization in Latin America is marching from the initial period to the acceleration one, and will show enormous momentum as it proceeds. Videos are changing the lifestyle of people in Latin America, with 72% Facebook users frequently watching and sharing mobile videos. The constantly improved VR/AR technology application will bring more demands for massive broadband, which is an opportunity for operators to step up business model transformation," said An Jian.
During the transitional period of digitalization in Latin America, An Jian suggested the adoption of measures such as service digitalization and business model innovation to facilitate broadband penetration, therefore promoting digitalization at work and in daily life in the region. "Operators may actively participate in establishing the ecosystem for mobile payment, and in propelling mobile broadband users to create user generated content (UGC). With more video content sources explored in such a way, we are able to accelerate the business model improvement."
An Jian said, "In the initial digitalization period, the government may set up a national broadband plan to encourage strategic investments with policies, and operators may develop a digitalization plan to support their strategic investments. When the digitalization proceeds into an acceleration period, operators may transform their consumer group–based services to comprehensive ones, and concentrate their investments on enterprise, government, and cloud services."
The Latin America Broadband Forum 2016 was attended by over 100 guests, including Argentine Minister of Communications, executives of telecom operators in Latin America, well-know analysts from GSMA, OVUM, IDC, and other organizations, famous scholars and consultants in North America and Latin America. The forum this year was aimed at facilitating the mobile and fixed broadband network construction, and the implementation of the national ICT strategy in Latin America, in order to propel GDP growth and deliver improvement in livelihood in the region.
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