A new Mexican MVNO called Gamers Mobile has been set up to target the country’s extensive gamer community, according to an announcement from the Altan Redes consortium. The operator was launched earlier this month by local video-game retail chain GamePlanet, offering a series of data-led plans as well as subscription offers in combination with Xbox. Like the majority of the MVNOs created in Mexico over the past few years, it uses the Red Compartida wholesale 4.5G shared network of Altan Redes, which covers around 70 percent of the country and 90 percent of the population via other available networks.

Plans available at launch via Gamers Mobile range from 8 GB of data plus 1,500 minutes of calls for MXN 200.00 (US $9.48) a month to 40 GB for MXN 250.00 (US $11.85) and 100 GB plus 10,000 minutes for MXN 550.00 (US $26.08) a month.

Tarifica’s Take

As we have previously observed, virtual offerings tend to do best when they tightly target a particular demographic and provide relevant services and content. A sense of community among the subscribers also helps power an MVNO to success. The example of online gaming is a representative one; gamers form a strong, virtually-based community, and they define themselves through an activity that is conducted largely over mobile devices. So targeting them via a virtual offering makes sense in market terms.

In terms of revenue, a gaming-based MVNO stands to sell a great deal of mobile data, since the games require large amounts of data at high speeds and therefore cause vigorous consumption. The only questions with Gamers Mobile is whether the 4.5G network of Altan Redes will provide enough bandwidth, and whether the lower-tier offering of 8 GB will be sufficient for serious gamers. In any case, the pricing appears very reasonable across all three tiers.