Now that the year has come to an end, it’s a great time to recap what we have achieved during the last year and what are our expectations for the next year.
For Mapon it has been an amazing year in the LATAM market. We have onboarded quite a few new partners and reached decent growth in the region. For the first time, we attended the Expo Seguridad as exhibitors, were stunned by the activity and the results of the event and thus are already packing bags for the next expo in April 2023.
So what are the trends we see in the telematics industry going into the next year? Join us in this analysis of telematics trends in the LATAM market.
Shift to more advanced fleet management solutions
When we started offering our fleet management software in the LATAM market years ago, all we were hearing was a low price level and simple features. This also explains the market saturation discussed in the previous years. If all the market requires is a basic track-and-trace system, there could be many players chasing the opportunity. Now we see that the trend is shifting to more advanced telematics solutions.
The players in the industry are using more advanced tracking units, which also include driver behaviour functions. There is some interest in getting data from the vehicle CAN data.
Although this seems a somewhat easy path, in reality, we see that there are certain difficulties with skilled installers. As long as the installation is done by connecting power wiring and ignition input, everything is fine. As soon as more complex devices need to be installed it takes a huge effort to educate the installers.
From our perspective we see this as an opportunity for our partner network, as we can easily share our experience from Europe in how we do CAN connections, fuel sensor installations including calibrations, cold chain monitoring and quite a lot of other advanced solutions. We have been providing these advanced products in Europe for years, so the platform is ready for what the tracking devices offer.
When discussing advanced solutions, we have also seen a decent rise in interest in various types of integrations. Especially important for larger transport companies working for global brands – they have to provide data to their headquarters to manage their operational efficiency and cargo safety. As of Mapon – we have finished and improved several integrations (UNIGIS, SUTRAN, ALTO MoveUp and SIAMES) this year and are open to extending the list in 2023.
Safety solutions and the rise of video telematics
Now that we have spent a few years developing fleet camera solutions, we can for sure say that
the LATAM region is one where companies might soon introduce video telematics on a mass scale. The reasoning we see behind this prediction is that the regulation about driver work and rest times is in its infancy compared to Europe and US/Canada.
The current rules are so soft that the risks of drivers being exhausted, dizzy and just falling asleep at the wheel are real, while the cost of simple, yet effective fleet camera solutions have a reasonable price tag.
Over the course of this year, we have seen the videos collected by our partners with several cases of drivers literally eating their hats while driving not to fall asleep and vehicles getting into accidents purely because drivers were exhausted. The regulations on a country or regional level take years to be introduced, however, companies might install video cameras to make their vehicles, drivers and cargo safe to reach their destinations.
Differences from other markets
If we look at the LATAM market and recent events, we can notice that the political stability in some of the countries is a lot lower than in our home markets in Europe. Although it can cause some adverse events and disruptions locally. So far it has not affected us or our plans in the region.
Another interesting aspect is that we were mentioning chip shortage as one of the challenges of 2022, but in reality, we didn’t notice any delays or shortages when discussing the market situation with our partners and local device manufacturers like Suntech.
And these are our predictions about the LATAM market which we hope you have found useful and will allow you to have a global vision of telematics future trends for 2023. In addition this year has been the year when we saw Mapon gaining strength in the region and in the fleet management industry, and our expectations are that this trajectory will continue in 2023. If you are interested in new business opportunities, you can get in touch with us at partnerships@mapon.com