For the second consecutive year, AVI LATINOAMÉRICA magazine delivers the ranking with the 50 most recognized integrating companies in the region, with the purpose of recognizing those who mark the growth of the industry.
By Richard Santa
In recent years the Latin American audiovisual industry has had an important growth, which reaches 15% per year according to data from InfoComm International and that exceeds the behavior of the industry in other regions and economic turbulence such as the situation of the dollar against local currencies.
Brazil and Mexico remain the most important markets due to their size and economic development, but it is noteworthy that growth has occurred in general throughout the region. You even begin to hear about the interest of manufacturers in unappetizing markets such as Bolivia.
In the last year, a significant number of companies have focused their growth objectives reaching the Latin market for the first time. Others, which already had a presence in the region, have increased their engineering and sales teams with the opening of offices and production plants, as is the case of Harman with its offices in Mexico and Epson with its production plant in Brazil, to mention two examples.
But this growth has not been reflected only by the number of sales and installations made in the region. It has been a growth accompanied by the professionalization and training of all the actors involved in the AV industry, such as the personnel of the integration companies, distributors and end users.
This interest in training and technological updating is corroborated in each of the TecnoMultimedia InfoComm fairs held in Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, to which the number of exhibitors and attendees grows year after year, as well as the number of visitors to the InfoComm Expos in the United States.
As a result of this work done over the past few years, end users no longer only have price as a decision factor about an integration. In addition, Latin integration companies have gained significant international recognition thanks to the technical quality of their interventions and the innovation applied in them.
Among others are the Argentine Icap, which managed to be the first Latin company to be part of the Global Presence Alliance; the also Argentine Convergence that has more than 8,000 digital signage screens, the same ones that it also manages; the Mexican Kolo who has innovated with the installation of screens in unusual places and forms; the Colombian Grupo Cosmos Integrados, which has the largest number of control centers installed in the most important scenarios in the region, such as the Panama Canal. And as these are many examples that could be mentioned.
That industry professionalization is also reflected in the increased collaboration among colleagues to achieve a successful outcome. More and more cases are known in which they seek the support of colleagues in the region and thus avoid moving personnel and equipment from their headquarters to other countries. Something that was rarely known before.
And although things are on the right track and everyone is betting that it will continue to be so in the coming years, the Latin American audiovisual industry still has important challenges to overcome and be able to achieve this goal that favors everyone. Among them, to replace the deficiency of trained and qualified personnel in audiovisual solutions, as well as some ethical problems of companies in the sector that use bad practices to win tenders and that in the end end up affecting the market, although fortunately there are fewer and fewer cases.
Also, the devaluation of local currencies against the dollar, an issue that since the end of 2014 has affected all countries in the region because most of the equipment in the AV industry is imported, increasing the cost of the facilities leaving as a result the postponement of some integrations until the situation changes.
The most recognized in 2015
For the second consecutive year, AVI LATINOAMÉRICA magazine presents a ranking with the 50 integrating companies with the highest recognition in Latin America that played a leading role in 2014, in order to make visible the achievements of the companies working day by day for the growth of the industry.
To achieve this ranking, a prior consultation was made with manufacturers, distributors and professionals with extensive knowledge in the sector, from each of the four regions included: Mexico, Central America, Andean Region and Southern Cone, information with which we managed to identify the meritorious companies of being within the ranking.
For the choice and positioning in the ranking, a collection of information was made from each of the companies, in aspects such as the years of existence, the number of employees and the number of integrations made in the last year.
In addition to these data, for a month a survey was conducted among the readers of AVI LATINOAMÉRICA to identify the companies with the greatest recognition. The sum of this data allowed us to position companies in the ranking in each of the regions. Thus, we present the 15 most important companies in Mexico, the 10 in Central America, 15 in the Andean Region and 10 in the Southern Cone.
We emphasize that the list included contact information for each of the 50 companies, as well as the country where each of the companies listed in the ranking develops its business.
As a result of this process, the company with the highest recognition in Mexico was Grupo Niza, which repeats in this position as well as the Chilean Videocorp in the Southern Cone and in Central America Digitech, a company based in Costa Rica. In the case of the Andean Region, there was a variation and in the first place is the Colombian Yamaki.
Know the lists for each of the regions:
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