MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mentez, the leading social games publisher in Latin America, today announced they have partnered with Zynga, the world’s largest social games developer, to make it easier for Latin American players to fully enjoy Zynga’s most popular games. Through this partnership, Mentez will be a distributor of Zynga Game Cards and PINS at more than 1 million retail locations and Internet cafes across this fast growing geographic region. Mentez will begin selling Zynga Game Cards in Brazil on February 18th, followed by Mexico and other Latin American countries in the near future.
“Latin Americans really love Zynga’s games,” said Mentez CEO Juan Franco. “These players are very interested in purchasing goods in their favorite Zynga games and the partnership with Mentez will give them an alternative payment method to credit cards, which are not widely used by consumers in this region.
Known across the world for its widely popular games such as CityVille, FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and Poker, Zynga is committed to continually enhancing players’ enjoyment and by offering dedicated game cards, Zynga will be providing new options for players throughout Latin America. Zynga Game Cards will be available in smaller currency values, which will give players more choices for amounts they want to spend on virtual goods within the game and will be available for use with Zynga’s most popular games. Mentez runs an alternative payments network in Latin American called Paymentez. Users can purchase game credits through Paymentez, using local credit cards online, through bank transfers, and in person with cash, at pharmacies, newsstands and Internet cafes. Zynga will sell Zynga Game Cards and PINS across the Paymentez network, which stretches from Mexico to Argentina.
The Paymentez platform launched to the public in mid-November 2009. The platform currently has 4 million active users, and is handling 650 transactions every second. To date, Paymentez has processed more than 8 million transactions.
Paymentez currently accepts both offline and online forms of payments for virtual credits including credit cards, debit cards, online bank transfers, in-person bank transactions and in-person cash transactions at retail points of sale and Internet cafes, and prepaid game cards.
Per capita credit card usage in Latin America remains low compared to North America, according to a March 2008 report from the International Trade Administration. The report estimates that Latin American countries like Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil have fewer than 1 credit card in circulation per person. That compares to more than 2.5 credit cards per person in the U.S. According to comScore, there are 73MM and 32MM Facebook and Orkut monthly unique users in Latin America, respectively. Assuming that 40-50% of these users play social games, the market opportunity for social games in Latin America currently ranges from 42MM to 52MM unique users.
About Zynga: Zynga Inc. is the world’s largest social game developer, with more than 290 million monthly active users playing their games, which include CityVille, FarmVille, FrontierVille, Mafia Wars, Zynga Poker, Café World, Treasure Isle, YoVille, FishVille and PetVille. Zynga Inc. games are available on a number of global platforms including Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, the iPad and iPhone. Through Zynga.org, Zynga players have raised more than $5 million for world social causes. Zynga Inc. is headquartered in San Francisco. For more information, visit www.zynga.com or www.zynga.org.
About Mentez LLC: Mentez, LLC, headquartered in Miami, Florida, is the leading social gaming publisher in Latin America. Mentez manages 3 out of the 5 most popular games on Orkut, Brazil’s largest social network with 52 million users, and its portfolio consists of 40 games and applications across multiple social networks. With 22 million weekly active users, Mentez created its own monetization platform called Paymentez to facilitate users’ micropayments via online and offline channels. Mentez’s strategy consists of giving its high-quality games a management and support system so users are always receiving the best and latest developments. Mentez has operations and presence across Latin America, the United States, China, and the UK. Additional information regarding Mentez and Paymentez can be found at www.mentez.com and http://www.paymentez.com.br