Wireless carriers woo Latinos

Walk into Methuen Mall's Cingular wireless store and the signs won't be just about ``Raising the Bar." The company's slogan instead becomes ``Adelante," or to press onward, and with World Cup fever, signs mention ``Vive el fútbol!"

It's all part of a concerted effort from wireless carriers to attract local Latino consumers, who have been among the fastest to adopt text messaging and mobile video. Last month Cingular brought in bilingual sales staff and signs to four Massachusetts stores, part of a plan to convert more than 400 outlets nationwide -- about a fifth of the total -- to focus on the Latino segment.

With the general market largely saturated, carriers are looking to Latinos for growth. When T-Mobile released its much ballyhooed Sidekick 3 in June, it made sure to invite Latina celebrities like Eva Longoria to its Los Angeles launch party. Sprint unveiled mobile Spanish TV service ``En Vivo" in May and has offered a bilingual chatting program called ``Latin Lounge." And on a recent episode of Univision's long-running TV show ``Sábado Gigante," two aspiring musicians used Verizon cellphones as props while performing a song aptly titled, ``La Llamada" or ``The Call."

``The Hispanic market is one of the fastest growing in the US, and it's very attractive in terms of usage," said a Cingular spokeswoman, Kate MacKinnon . ``They use more minutes; they text more; they make more long-distance calls; and they download more ringtones."

Indeed, Latino telephone users log 979 minutes per month compared with 632 minutes for whites, according to research firm Telephia Inc . Mark Stockdale, director of Hispanic marketing for T-Mobile , said Latino consumers as a whole are more likely to use their cellphones because the demographic skews younger -- a median 26 years old compared to 36 for whites -- which means they adopt new technology more quickly. Latinos also tend to have larger families, so perhaps need more calls to stay in touch, he said.

Latinos are also a lucrative market because many have relatives overseas and international phone calls have higher profit margins than other services, said Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center . According to Pew, 79 percent of the foreign-born Mexican population talk to their family in Mexico at least once a month.

``It's a huge amount of connectivity, and if you look at it by income, they index off the charts," he said. ``How many minimum wage workers make an international phone call more than once a week?"

Ilean Galvez, who was shopping in Jamaica Plain yesterday, said she uses her cellphone to call relatives in Puerto Rico at least once a month. ``We use it for everything -- `What are you doing? Want to go shopping? What are you up to tonight?' " added her daughter Melissa, who had just been chatting on her cellphone.

The purchasing power of the United States' more than 40 million Latinos has wireless companies hawking everything from salsa ringtones to Spanish-language World Cup soccer video clips. T-Mobile has Spanish-language television stars use Sidekicks on popular nighttime telenovelas.

Cingular, which sponsors the US tour of the Mexican soccer team, will have a World Cup player visit its newly converted Worcester store this summer.

The carrier also signed a deal this year to place its kiosks throughout Gigante USA Inc.'s supermarket chain in Southern California.

At the same time, Verizon sponsors Colombian singer Shakira , who released some of the songs on her ``Oral Fixation" album as Verizon ringtones last year.

Brands targeted exclusively at Latinos like Movida Communications Inc. and TuYo Mobile have emerged as well. Movida sells a prepaid service at K-Mart and Wal-Mart stores in largely Latino areas.

Enrique Garcia, chairman of Movida , says marketing to Latinos, who come from all over Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America, can be a formidable task.

He said that recent immigrants are reluctant to lock into two-year agreements and that marketing to the group as a whole sometimes falls flat.

For example, Movida tailors its ads for the diverse Latino community by playing reggaeton in Los Angeles and norteño music in the Southwest to reach Mexicans, and then salsa on the East Coast for Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans.

It also avoided partnering with any country's World Cup team, fearful of provoking fervent soccer fans.

``We would make all the other communities mad, like the Brazilians, the Argentines, and so on. And then what if your team loses?" he said.

Still, some users say the extra attention from cellphone carriers helps.

``There are so many people who speak Spanish here, and they really understand us now," said Sheila Sanchez , 14, who downloads Shakira and Sean Paul ringtones on her Verizon phone.

Kim-Mai Cutler can be reached at kcutler@globe.com.