Ulrik Restorp, SVP of Product at Shape Games, explores the opportunities and advantages fully native applications can unlock for operators throughout Latin America.

The rise of regulated sports betting throughout Latin America has opened a vast sea of opportunity for the sports betting industry as local operators and international brands vie for market share.

There are multiple considerations in play for any sportsbook when targeting local Latin American jurisdictions. Offering an extensive range of sports is critical – complete with a deep selection of combinable markets such as player props in both the pre-match and live arenas – alongside a localised offering with high quality odds, powered by a high-performance platform.

However, ensuring these are all packaged within a best-in-class, intuitive front end that is true to that sportsbook’s brand identity is increasingly one of the most important battlegrounds determining customer acquisition and long-term success in Latin America.

Where web-based applications were once enough to attract and hold customers’ attention, the advantages of a fully native approach — apps developed for specific operating systems such as iOS and Android — to both content delivery and performance are becoming impossible to ignore throughout the region.

Peak performance in all conditions

It’s no secret that users expect rapid loading times and instantaneous interactions with the apps they engage with. Swift execution in performance is the expectation — not only in betting and gaming but also across all end-user software — and friction at any point of engagement from sign-up to bet settlement can hobble even the most content-rich and high-quality backend set up.

Both web-based and fully native applications are capable of performing effectively on modern devices with good network conditions, but web-based can struggle on lower tier devices and with limited network connectivity or poor bandwidth.

By way of example, according to LatAm data from software research firm Xceptance, the first load time on a web-based application over a 3G connection was more than 60 seconds for 75% of users, while the equivalent load time was less than 20 seconds on native Android applications.

There are multiple reasons behind this, but the key factors are that with web-based applications all assets must download over the network on initial load, while scripts need parsing and compiling before execution, requiring relatively high overhead.

Pre-installed code and assets, alongside code execution using device APIs, are a hallmark of fully native apps and result in far lower traffic overhead and optimised execution, delivering significantly enhanced performance for the end user.

The UX breakdown which comes with the high latency of web-based apps in poor conditions contributes to user frustration, lower engagement and ultimately far more limited prospects of retention – an issue which does not befall fully native alternatives.

Seamless content journeys, every time

Excellent performance is a vital building block in driving user engagement, but of equal importance is using that performance as a building block to deliver a rich and comprehensive selection of betting content. Kambi, powered by front-end subsidiary Shape Games, is a provider which prioritises supporting operators in delivering all of this content in a manner which is true to their brand, through native clients which make flexibility absolutely paramount.

At a baseline level, Shape Games’ native applications can be tailored to reflect each brand’s distinct identity through dynamic theming, layouts and feature configuration, with a centralised codebase both reducing complexity and simplifying any maintenance required.

The content delivery system is fully modular by design. Sportsbook and casino operators can mix and match the manner in which game collections, betting markets, search functions and content recommendations appear to the end user, with fully native functionality enabling seamless switching between sportsbook and icasino – a far more polished and brand-led experience than web-based applications are able to facilitate.

Another advantage for LatAm operators conferred by native over more traditional web-based approaches is that Shape Games’ native applications enable the display of statistics such as league tables within the app – keeping players inside the application where alternatives require them to navigate away.

Kambi and Shape Games have an unwavering commitment to empowering partners throughout Latin America. Customer demands throughout the region are evolving, placing greater emphasis on performance, personalisation and seamless content journeys, and fully native app technology provides betting and gaming operators with the tools they need to meet those demands.