AOL LAUNCHES MEXICO SERVICE.

American Online, Inc. (AOL) announced plans to launch a Spanish-language Internet access service in Mexico. An earlier English-language service had been announced as part of its effort to establish a substantial subscriber base outside of the United States. While AOL has nearly 24 million subscribers, more than 20 million of which are in the U.S. It expects to make inroads into Latin America which represents the fastest growing Internet market in the world, with an anticipated expansion from present day 8.5 million to 30 million by the year 2003 (IDC Report). The AOL venture is in an alliance with Cisneros Group of Venezuela, which provides substantial content to Spanish-language television networks in the U.S.

AOL will face substantial competition and has encountered severe competitive shocks in its Brazilian service both in the loss of key senior personnel and aggressive competitive free service offerings. Mexico is perceived as a bell weather for AOL because of its close ties with the U.S. and its culture, and failure would bode ill for other Latin American services on the AOL drawing board.