Unicorns, El Buen Fin & Uruguay’s Connectivity

Welcome to Latinometrics. We bring you Latin American insights and trends through concise, thought-provoking data visualizations. It’s great to be with you again – or if you’re new, to have you here for the first time.

Today’s charts:

1. LatAm’s Unicorns are worth $81B

2. El Buen Fin keeps growing

3. Uruguay leads on internet connectivity

By the way, thank you for sharing and engaging with our FEMSA Breakdown graph on LinkedIn last week. It was great to see many FEMSA and OXXO employees excited about their company’s growth. We shared our favorite comment at the bottom.

Land of Unicorns 🦄

You may think of Unicorns as mythical creatures that do not exist. In the tech world, a Unicorn is a startup company whose valuation is worth over $1B (USD). In Latin America, Unicorns are real; there are over 20 of them and combined, they are worth almost $82 Billion.

The growth of these companies in some cases has been quite remarkable. For example, Nubank has grown more than 30x in 5 years and is set to continue soaring once it enters the public market next year.

With several prominent players from Latin America already in public markets like Mercado Libre, PagSeguro, and Despegar, global investors have noticed and want to get in early by pouring billions of dollars into startups.

For example, SoftBank’s Marcelo Claure announced the “Latin America Fund II” in September, committing a total of $8B to fund Latin American startups— Who knows? Maybe Latinometrics will soon be joining the Unicorn pack 👀.

Economy 💰

Mexico’s “El Buen Fin” (Spanish for “The Good Weekend”) is an annual commerce event held every November, similar to the Black Friday holiday in the US. The tradition has been around since 2011 and consists of a weekend in which many businesses offer discounts and sales.

During the last few years, the Mexican government has pushed for increased e-commerce, offering guides and instructions on how Mexican businesses can start selling online. In 2020, digital sales increased 225% YoY, bringing total sales to an incredible 11.5B (USD). Together, the Mexican government and business owners expect the 2021 Buen Fin to be a much-needed economic boost after another tough pandemic year.

The 2021 Buen Fin ended last night. We’ll be on the lookout for the latest numbers reported and share them with you when we see them!

Digital Infrastructure 🌐

In Uruguay, 83.3% of the population used the Internet in 2019, the highest percentage in Latin America. As a comparison, Uruguay stacks up just above countries like Russia, Portugal, and France.

The country has enacted a series of policies meant to modernize the economy. Most notably, in 2007, it pledged to adopt a “one laptop per child” initiative for all of its primary schools, delivering 450,000 laptops and no-cost internet access in only four years.

Uruguay is living proof that Latin American countries can keep up with the rapid pace of technological development.

Want more?

Join the discussion on social media, where we’ll be posting today’s charts throughout the week. Follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.

Here’s the comment of the week, which came as a reply to our FEMSA Breakdown:

Comment of the week (LinkedIn)

Translation: Whenever Oxxo decides to connect its stores and identify its visitors, it will have the most potent omnichannel database of consumer behavior. The reason: It will obtain offline information of its customers and connect it to the digital. In other words, when you enter an Oxxo, the store will know what product you came for, and it will attempt to sell you more of it. And if you are not visiting, it will make you do so. 😉