HipCricket Expands South of the Border

Mobile marketing outfit HipCricket is going international. The company’s first stop outside the US comes in the form of HipCricket de Mexico. From there, it intends to expand into other Latin American countries.

To build HipCricket de Mexico, the company partnered with Mexican telecom execs Pablo Peralta and Enrique Lopez-Negrete, both of whom have invested in the Mexican start-up. Lopez-Negrete has been named CEO of the new venture.

According to HipCricket, it’s the first company to bring comprehensive mobile marketing solutions to Mexico, which has nearly 78 million mobile subscribers. These mobile consumers are doing much more with their phones than just talking. According to the Mobile Marketing Association, 70% of mobile users in Mexico expressed some sort of interest in mobile marketing. A third are highly interested in receiving mobile alerts for sales and other promotions, 30% would like to get info on new products or services delivered to their phones, 30% are highly interested in text-to-win contests and 29% want to receive mobile coupons.

HipCricket’s Latin American expansion comes nearly a year after it launched the first Hispanic Mobile Marketing Network in the US. The network reaches 14 of the country’s top 15 Hispanic markets and more than nine million consumers.

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