Latin America gets skipped by smaller manufacturers more often than any region except Africa, usually for a reason nobody says out loud: it feels like a lot of work for a market nobody on the team knows. Sometimes that is the right call. Often it is a default dressed up as a decision.
Brazil is the region, mostly
Brazil holds 100,893 product records against 33,389 for Colombia and 14,324 for Mexico. It is the anchor by a wide margin, and it is also the market with the deepest public purchasing trail — we hold nearly 15,000 tender records for Brazil, at award level.
That last point matters more for a small manufacturer than for a large one. If you cannot afford a market study, a procurement history is the closest free substitute: it shows what was actually bought, by which institution, and often at what value. You are not guessing at demand; you are reading it.
Costa Rica is not what its numbers suggest
Costa Rica shows 50,024 product records — comparable to Saudi Arabia and larger than Malaysia, in a country of five million people. That is not a domestic demand signal. Costa Rica is a significant device manufacturing and export hub, and its register reflects production rather than consumption. Nearly two-thirds of its registered manufacturers also hold a US or EU registration, which is the signature of an export base.
It is a clean illustration of why record counts should never be read as market size, and worth knowing before someone puts it on a shortlist for the wrong reason.
The field is more international than people expect
Roughly 48% of Brazil's registered manufacturers also hold a US or EU registration, and about the same in Colombia. That is a more familiar competitive set than most of Asia offers — closer to Southeast Asia than to China or Japan.
For a smaller company that translates into something practical: the distributors have handled foreign manufacturers before, the documentation expectations will feel recognisable, and you can benchmark against companies you already understand.
So is it worth it?
A reasonable rule for a company with limited regulatory bandwidth:
- Yes, if your category shows up in public tenders. The purchasing is legible, which lowers the risk of the whole exercise more than anything else on this list.
- Yes, if you already hold US or EU approval and your documentation is in order — you will be entering a field where roughly half the players did exactly that.
- Probably not yet, if you are choosing between Latin America and a first Asian market and have bandwidth for one. Asia's reliance-friendly markets generally compound faster.
- Not on the strength of Costa Rica's record count, which is a manufacturing artefact.
The mistake worth avoiding is treating the region as one decision. Brazil is a serious market with a readable demand signal. The others are genuinely smaller and should be evaluated on their own terms rather than swept in behind it.