It's not yet on the scale of Asia, but plenty of mobile game companies are now looking to the emerging markets of Latin America in terms of their future growth.

That's good timing for the first mobile gaming conference dedicated exclusively to the Latin American and US Hispanic markets.

Called M2Games LATAM 2014, it's being held in the JW Marriott Marquis in Miami, Florida between 24-25 April.

Digging deep

The focus of the conference will be to provide an overview of the countries and cultural differences of a region that's predicted to consist of over 145 million smartphones by 2017.

It also has a strong development community with global players such as DeNA and Glu Mobile having studios in the region.

Companies already signed up for the event include EA, Microsoft, Vserv.mobi and Behaviour Interactive, local developers such as Akamon Entertainment and Widow Games, plus game associations such as ACIGames and IGDA Peru.

PocketGamer.biz will also be in attendance, with one of our Mobile Mixer evenings prepped and ready to go.

You can find out more about M2Games LATAM 2014 via its website.

Tickets cost $1,150 if booked before 31 March, rising to $1,550 after that date.