Rocket Joins the March of Mobile in Latin America with Linio App

By David Knight |

Most people agree that the rise and rise of mobile is inevitable, and that’s not only true for mature markets. Certainly Rocket Internet agrees, with the Berlin-based startup conveyer belt seeing its Latin American e-commerce concern Linio launch its first shopping app.

The free Android app will be available in Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela, and is hoping to cash in on an important trend in the continent’s fast-growing e-commerce space – according to a World Bank study, Latin America already has more mobile phones than it does people.

Linio says the new app will offer users the ability to browse products by categories, brands and keywords, and sort results by popularity, price, name and brand. There will also be exclusive offers and simple payment methods such as credit cards. That all perhaps sounds so-so to European ears, but it could really stir things up for Linio, which landed a reported €15 million in funding from Tengelmann in February.

Andreas Mjelde, CEO of Linio, said: “About a fifth of our customers already come from mobile devices. We believe that m-commerce, besides e-commerce, is the future of retail. It is a further technological and cultural milestone and with our app, we are a leading part of this evolving social trend.”

Linio, which has a German holding company, is an Amazon clone specialising in selling home electronics including TVs, computers and mobile phones, and claims to be the fastest-growing online sales portal in Latin America.