INTERVIEW: Google’s head of business development for messaging products in Latin America said the company sees an opportunity for Rich Communication Services (RCS) to grow and fill a need in business-to-consumer communications in the region.

Silvio Pegado (pictured), acknowledged consumer messaging in Latin America is dominated by OTT apps. However, he told Mobile World Live the implementation of RCS as the messaging standard would offer a more effective communications channel for businesses than SMS currently provides.

“We have a very good opportunity in the [consumer] conversation with brands,” Pegado said: “There are a lot of opportunities through RCS so brands can improve, can send video, images, localisation with Google Maps, other things.”

More from Pegado on how Google is working with operators to open up this opportunity can be found here.

Last week four of Latin America’s largest operators launched advanced RCS services, enabling next generation messaging for 60 per cent of the region’s mobile subscribers.

Customers of America Movil, Oi, Telefonica and AT&T Mexico will be able to send cross-network RCS messages and also to users in countries outside of Latin America connected to Google’s RCS cloud hub Jibe Platform.