Main trends

Colombians mostly consume instant messaging applications on their mobile phones. According to a survey by the Mexican company Lanix in 2017, the most used instant messaging app is WhatsApp with 84 percent, followed by Facebook Messenger with 9 percent, Messenger Lite (a version of Facebook Messenger that consumes less space on the mobile) with 4 percent, then Skype and Telegram with 2 and 1 percent respectively. In addition, 77 percent of respondents claimed to have between 5 and 20 apps installed. The mail and messaging apps are the ones that are first consulted at the beginning of the day.

With respect to music and pay TV, Colombians prefer in the first category the applications of Spotify, Deezer, Claro Musica (service offered by the company Claro), Tune in Radio and Smule Sing. The second category is dominated by Netflix, then DirecTV Play, Claro Video (again, offered by the company Claro), HBO Go, Fox Play and Caracol Play, the latter showing the positioning of the Caracol chain in the transition to digital content.

In the country, there are around 30 financial entities, of which 18 to date have decided to launch their mobile services. Bancolombia, Davivienda and BBVA are the most used apps by Colombians. The other 15 applications belong to Banco de Bogotá, Banco Popular, Banco Itaú, Citibank, Banco GNB Sudameris, Banco Occidente, Banco Caja Social, Banco Colpatria, Banco Agrario, Banco AV Villas, Bancamía, Bancoomeva, Banco Falabella, Banco Pichincha and Banco Cooperativo Coopcentral.

Bancolombia dominates the market with almost 8 million unique users. GFK, a company specialised in market research and consumer knowledge, indicates that 70 percent of Bancolombia users are under 44 years old, while in the Davivienda app this public represents 62 percent. In the case of BBVA, 50 percent are over 45 years old. The division by regions is also noticeable, where Bancolombia has more users in the Caribbean, the Coffee and Pacific Axis, Davivienda in the eastern center and BBVA in the south-central region.