We said that Latin America was going to be a major global center of technology and in our Latin America Pay TV report, showed how likely growth is beyond all previous estimates for the region. Now Bloomberg news tell us that Foxconn, one of the largest electronics goods manufacturers in the world, plans to spend $12 billion over a 5 or 6 year period, making it a manufacturing hub for tablets, among other things.
The Foxconn deal will be a single factory eventually employing 100,000 people and negotiations are going on regarding things like guaranteeing electrical supply, broadband, and physical communications. One thing that Foxcon confirmed would be made there are tablets, and given that it makes the Apple iPad, it can pretty much guarantee a market for some time to come.
Brazil has a tough import climate for electronic goods, with import duties going as high as 80% on some devices, though far lower duties on raw materials or components, which is what attracted over $2 billion in Japanese investment when the country decided to take ISDB-T as its terrestrial and mobile TV technology. Since then a variety of phone makers have set up shop there, Motorola is expected to build a plant to build the Xoom in Sao Paolo, while LG has similar plans for the Optimus tablet.
The Brazilian government has said it will give students in schools tablets instead of PCs, to modernize Brazil’s education system, which is why it has set up tax incentives for tablet makers.
Now all it needs is for local forces to make software connections between the burgeoning Pay TV services and tablets or find a way for ISDB-T broadcasts to terminate at tablets and suddenly it will become a hotbed of tablet development.