BOLIVIA SLASHED INFANT MORTALITY BY 88% IN 60 YEARS

Infant mortality rates have been drastically decreasing worldwide over the past century. In a span of 25 years, infant deaths decreased from 12.1M to 5.8M per year. No wonder Bill Gates called this “the most beautiful chart in the world.”

Although the drop is commonly visualized with data from Africa, the same trend is visible in Latin America, and Bolivia reflects it like no other. One-eighth as many newborn babies die yearly as did 60 years ago. Many babies who died during the 20th century did so from infectious diseases like measles, so vaccines and antibiotics have been critical to reducing mortality rates. However, Bolivia’s efforts to improve the health of children didn’t stop there.
In the mid-1990s, the Bolivian government established a policy of free universal healthcare for mothers and children, in which maternal health and infant survival became a priority.

MERCADOPAGO HAS BECOME MERCADOLIBRE'S BIGGEST BUSINESS

You can now think of MercadoLibre as a Fintech business and a pioneer in the field. Its top product nowadays is MercadoPago. The service started as a solution for the largely unbanked population of Argentina (and Latin America) to pay for things on MercadoLibre’s marketplace. Its payments solution was exceptionally early; it was launched in 2003, just four years after the company’s founding.

The payments division has evolved outside of MercadoLibre’s marketplace by pioneering a wide range of features that are now more widespread in the industry:

- Ensuring payments for both businesses and consumers
- Quick debit card account openings
- Deposits in convenience stores
- Payments with QR codes
- Extending credits

In other words, MercadoPago was Fintech before Fintech was cool — according to Google Trends, the term “fintech” started getting big until 2015.

LATIN AMERICAN PLAYERS IN TOP EUROPEAN & US FOOTBALL LEAGUES

With the World Cup coming up later this year, it seems fitting to wonder how many Latin Americans play in the top European and US football leagues. So, we decided to chart the data.

The answer is a lot. According to data from SoccerWay, there are 653 players from Latin America in the eight leagues seen on the chart. 30% of them play in the US, the highest country. These are the highest-paid Latin Americans in the leagues as mentioned above:

USA MLS: 🇲🇽 Carlos Vela (Los Angeles FC)
Portugal Primeira Liga: 🇧🇷 Everton Sousa Soares (Benfica)
Spain La Liga: 🇧🇷 Marcelo (Real Madrid)
Italy Serie A: 🇦🇷 Paulo Dybala (Juventus)
UK Premier League: 🇺🇾 Edinson Cavani (Man. United)
France Ligue 1: 🇦🇷 Lionel Messi (PSG)
Germany Bundesliga: 🇦🇷 Lucas Alario
Netherland’s Eredivisie: 🇦🇷 Nicolás Tagliafico

HOW MUCH MONEY DO LATIN AMERICANS ABROAD SEND HOME?

Remittances or “remesas” are payments sent from people earning an income abroad back to their home country. There’s an admirable quality to the act of sending remittances. These payments are often sent from hardworking people in the US to support their communities and families.

You’ll notice a trend on the chart: overall, countries farther south from the US receive a lower share of remittances in terms of their GDP. 24% of El Salvador’s economy consists of remittance payments.

The most notable exception to the trend is Mexico. Despite receiving an astronomical $42.9 billion in 2020 and being the closest neighbor to the US, it receives remittances that account for only 4% of its GDP. That’s because the country has a diverse economy that pulls its weight through industries like manufacturing, petroleum, and tourism.

All combined, the countries on the chart received a total of almost $100B in 2020. For 2021, The World Bank reported a 21.6% increase.

THE CITIBANAMEX ROLLERCOASTER RIDE IS OVER

Last week, Citi announced its plans to auction off Banamex. The bank justified the move as part of its plan to focus on its “institutional banking operations.” In other words, Citi will now only serve corporations with over $1B in revenues and the ultra-wealthy in Mexico.

We dug into Citi’s SEC filings and found that a Mexico exit makes sense. Not only does the company’s Institutional Clients Group (ICG) branch has better margins than its Global Consumer Division (GCB – aka Banamex) in Mexico, but it also surpassed it in revenues for the first time in 2019. In 2021, ICG had a 49% profit margin, while GCB had only 19%.

In retrospect, we should’ve all seen this coming. Citi has been selling off its global consumer banks left and right: It sold its Brazil and Argentina banks to Itaú and Santander in 2016.

We also suspect that the rise of modern competitors like Nubank, albo, and Clara, could’ve impacted this decision as Citi accepted a defeat in the consumer market.

IS KAVAK THE NEXT CARVANA OR VROOM IN LATAM?

Kavak, the first Mexican unicorn, is now valued at $8.7B after raising $700M from Tiger Global Management and Softbank in September. It effectively doubled its valuation for the second time in 2021.

Since Kavak faces little competition in Latin America, we thought of comparing its valuation to its American counterparts. While Kavak has so far thrived during its private funding rounds, Carvana and Vroom have recently struggled in the US public market.

Since its IPO at $22 per share in June 2020, Vroom’s stock soared to a maximum closing price of $73.87 before diving to its most recent close of $7.60. It lost more than 90% of its value after disappointing earnings and reporting issues with its sales operations and inventory management. The leading used car reselling platform in the US, Carvana has been on a similar path, losing around 60% of its value since its peak valuation of $65.7B last August.

DISNEY'S ENCANTO IS A GLOBAL HIT, BUT NOT AS MUCH AS COCO

Disney’s new animated film, Encanto, has received positive feedback from film critics and audiences alike. The movie is about a family from Colombia who lives in a magical house and has extraordinary gifts. The visuals are stunning, and the storyline is phenomenal.

Despite its immense success, Encanto hasn’t reached the popularity of Disney Pixar’s 2017 Coco, according to Google Trends. The plot of Coco takes place during Mexico’s “Día de Los Muertos.” Our chart shows its enduring impact: global interest has continued to peak yearly around the holiday (Nov. 1) since its release.

With a worldwide box office of $807M, Coco sits as Wikipedia’s #20 highest-grossing animated film of all time. On the other hand, Encanto has so far grossed $222M at the box office. However, Encanto was released during a different era: post-COVID, and with the option to stream on Disney+.

Disney once again shined a light on the magic of LatAm for all the world to see.

MEXICO'S OXXO HAS MORE STORES THAN THE BIGGEST US RETAIL CHAINS

The Oxxo slogan is “a la vuelta de tu vida” literally meaning “just around your life.” And that slogan couldn’t be more accurate. There seems to be one in every block of the country. What Oxxo offers is way more than convenience store products, it allows anyone to pay their utility bills, make bank deposits, and even make e-commerce payments with cash. By integrating its cash register with Mexico’s biggest banks, it’s estimated that 80% of all cash deposits are made in an Oxxo.

The only US chain with more locations than Oxxo is Subway with 24,154. However, unlike Oxxo, none of Subway’s locations are company-owned. They are all franchises and run independently. FEMSA, on the other hand, operates all of its 20k stores and does a peculiar job to standardize them. This allows them to offer the same customer experience whether you visit a store in Tijuana or Merida.

VISUALIZING LATIN AMERICA'S EXPORT ECONOMY

Latin America is a major exporter of goods to the rest of the world. A look at the region's overall exports shows that it’s sending mostly raw materials. Examples of those raw materials are:

🛢 Crude oil (petroleum)
🥇 Gold
🥉 Copper
🌱 Soybeans

Over time, countries have exported more products to China. Starting in 2001, China began engaging Latin America and building strong economic ties. It mostly seeks the raw materials that the region produces and in turn exports manufactured goods back.

The US and China have thus become competitors for dominance in the region (and the world).

AT&T'S MOMENTUM IN MEXICO HAS STAGNATED

AT&T México entered the market through its acquisition of Nextel and Iusacell in 2015. From then to 2018, it more than doubled its number of subscribers and added more new subscribers each quarter than Telcel, the country’s dominant telecom provider. That trend ended in early 2019, and since then, Telcel has added 3.8M new subscribers, while AT&T only 1.1M (as of Q3 2021).

So what caused the slow in growth? According to Speedtest by Ookla, AT&T’s overall speed and consistency score are lower than its competitors. In general, AT&T’s prices are also higher than Telcel’s.

However, the entrance of a credible competitor to the long-reigning giant has been a net positive for the country. According to a 2019 statement by AT&T Mexico CEO Mónica Aspe, wireless prices went down since they entered the market by 40%.

THE NFL IS HAVING ITS BEST SEASON YET IN MEXICO

It's been an exciting year for American football (farewell, Tom Brady ✌️). The NFL is not only the most popular sports league in the US; it's also the world’s most valuable. Due to growing popularity, marketing, and season games played in Mexico, Google Trends search volume for the NFL in Mexico reached an all-time during last week's playoffs.

The NFL has been ramping up excitement in Mexico for a few years now, especially after it began exporting one game per season to Mexico City (and London), marketing it as the "NFL International Series." In 2016, with a game between the Texans and Raiders, the league began a yearly tradition of one match per year played in Mexico.

From casual international fans to serious ones, there appears to be no slowing down of this trend anytime soon. And the League is going all-in on it: In December, it announced its "International Home Marketing Area," granting 18 teams with international marketing in eight different countries.

BRAZILIAN VC FUNDS ARE BETTING BIG AND EARLY ON LATAM STARTUPS

Latin America is the fastest-growing region for Venture funding, and seed funding is no exception. This chart represents seed rounds, which are usually the very first investment that a startup receives, often even before they have a track record or can generate cash of their own.

Brazilian VC firms are leading this kind of funding for Latin American startups, with six of the top ten VC firms based in São Paulo. Bossanova is the “Venture Capital mais ativo da América Latina,” (the most active fund in LatAm) and, according to its website, has invested in 893 startups to date. Its investments include startups like HubLocal, Mywork, and EasyJur.

Brazil’s dominance is remarkable, but it’s nice to see a Chilean firm, Magma Partners, participating in the funding. Founded in 2014, it focuses on early-stage fintech, insurance tech, and blockchain startups in Latin America. Will VC firms based in other LatAm countries appear on next year’s chart?

SIX LATAM COUNTRIES PRODUCE OVER HALF THE WORLD'S COFFEE

Did you know that Brazil is the world's biggest coffee producer?

Even more surprising, only 6 Latin American countries produce half of the world's coffee. Latin Americans are not big coffee drinkers, however. That title is held by Europeans, which, funny enough, produce no coffee at all.

Cold climates might help explain coffee consumption a little better — Finland, Norway, Iceland, and Denmark consume the most coffee per capita globally.

Coffee consumption began in the 15th century after merchants started exporting it for the first time out of Ethiopia. Since then, human beings couldn't put their cups down, and coffee plantations reached all corners of the world to meet growing demand. Latin America was late to the game, however: It wasn't until 1720 —almost 300 years later— that French naval officer Gabriel de Clieu brought the first beans to the tiny Caribbean island of Martinique.

AB INBEV'S LATIN AMERICAN BEERS ARE ITS BEST-SELLERS

AB InBev’s story is a masterclass of global brand consolidation. Perhaps you don’t know their name, but you’d be lying if you said you haven’t seen their products. The company produces and sells more than 500 brands worldwide, most of which are beers. Its entire history of mergers and acquisitions is hard to cover, but the 4 mentioned on our chart are the most significant on its quest for global domination.

Earnings data suggests that the company’s consolidation of North American brands hasn’t paid off quite as well. Since the merger with Anheuser-Busch (Bud Light’s makers), which put the “AB” in AB InBev, its yearly North American revenues have barely grown, and its volume has decreased 20%.

AB InBev’s crowning jewel as the world’s largest beer maker happened in 2016 when it merged with SAB Miller (Miller Lite’s makers); the deal was worth $100B.

CITIES WITH THE MOST EXPENSIVE APARTMENTS IN LATAM

A 2021 study revealed the most expensive cities to live in Latin America, measured by apartment square meter prices. The study also showed an overall decline in Latin American real estate value. Eight out of 14 cities saw price decreases compared to 2017 — an overall 0.5% decline across all cities.

With an average price of $3,441 per square meter, housing in Santiago, Chile, is the most expensive in the continent. That price would put a 150 m² apartment at above half a million US dollars. However, price increases in the city have slowed down from their explosive 7.32% growth in 2019 to merely 1.7% during 2020. Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo have seen price declines of 43% and 23%, respectively, since 2017.

On the other hand, three Mexican cities have seen the largest overall increase in residential prices. Real estate prices in Mexico City and Monterrey have increased 28% and 32%, respectively, since 2017.

SOLAR ENERGY IS BOOMING IN LATIN AMERICA

Tourists are not the only ones taking advantage of Latin America’s precious sunlight due to its tropical latitudes. During the last few years, demand for solar panels in the region has skyrocketed as panel prices decrease and efficiency increases.

Brazil’s installed capacity is expected to reach 10 GW by 2024, and Mexico finds itself on a very similar track. Similarly, as of last year, 4 GW installations were under development in Chile, with more authorized projects that will bring its PV capacity to 22 GW. Installed solar photovoltaic capacity in the region has grown about a hundredfold in little under a decade, topping 20 gigawatts in 2020.

While these three nations now dominate the industry, Latin America still has a lot of untapped potential: Argentina’s solar capacity quadrupled between 2018 and 2020, and Colombia is developing projects with a total PV capacity of 400 MW.

COCA-COLA EARNS MORE WITH LESS IN LATIN AMERICA

Coca-Cola has been having a tough few years of revenue and profit declines. Its best year was ten years ago; since then, its revenue and EBITDA have been either declining or in slow-growth mode. Whereas it's hard to point at just one factor, a massive one is a decline in soft drink consumption, especially in rich countries.

The Coca-Cola Company, however, has always found some comfort in its 100-year old, Latin American operation. Margins have been better than all other regions since at least 1990, and they've gotten even better since then — from 37 to 62% in 2021. Also, Latin Americans love coke: Mexico and Brazil are both in the global top 3 of per capita soda consumption.

Last year marked 100 years since Coca-Cola's entered Latin America through Mexico. Coca-Cola can now be found in literally all other countries in the world, except for two: our very own Cuba and North Korea.

LATAM: FROM FULL DEMOCRACIES TO AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) just released its yearly Democracy Index in which it ranks and assigns a democracy score to every country based on five factors.

In general, the news wasn’t good — Latin America’s overall score fell for the sixth straight year. According to the EIU, it was “the biggest downgrade recorded by any region since [launching] the Democracy Index.”

Only about 1% of the region’s population lives in what it calls a “Full democracy,” thanks to our MVPs, Uruguay and Costa Rica. These two countries both ranked in the world’s top 20.

THE LARGEST HOTEL GROUP IN LATIN AMERICA IS CUBAN

Cuban hotel group Grupo Gaviota, founded in 1988, is Latin America’s largest hotel chain with 35,000 rooms. Gaviota belongs to the state-owned monopoly Gaesa, the business management group of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR), headed by Raúl Castro’s former son-in-law, Luis Alberto López-Callejas.

In second place, we have Posadas, Mexico’s largest hotel chain. The group has been expanding fast. Under various brands, it owns, rents, and manages hotels, resorts, and villas. Before the pandemic, its CEO José Carlos Azcárraga Andrade highlighted that they’ve had new openings practically every month.

However, it seems that the pandemic brought some significant challenges for Posadas. So much so that the company got court approval to restructure its debt in December. This allows it “to prioritize the use of its cash for operating activities to preserve jobs and help maintain the high quality for which its hotels are known.”

MEXICO HAS A HUGE WATER PROBLEM

Mexico has found itself in a shocking sanitation crisis for at least 20 years as 57% of its population doesn’t have access to safely managed drinking water.

Perhaps even more surprising is the inexplicable gap between some developing nations and Mexico when it comes to this same metric: Congo, a country with a GDP per capita of about 1/20th of Mexico’s, has managed to provide better access to safe drinking water since 2012.
Why is this the case? Besides likely poor prioritization by the country’s institutions, there are various forces that affect the water supply negatively:

1) The country has an aging pipe system, and around 35% of clean water is lost due to its poor distribution.
2) Approximately 70% of lakes, rivers, and dams are polluted to some degree, posing availability issues and health risks.
3) The country has an insufficient water supply as droughts have become a common year-over-year occurrence, especially in the northern part of the country.