The Indian mobile ecosystem has been expanding at such a phenomenal rate that country is all set to become a global force to reckon with in mobile industry.
Thanks to the mobile market’s rapid adoption of smartphones (Indian smartphone devices are slotted to touch the 651 million mark by 2019), the Indian m-commerce sector has seen a tremendous boom as mobile shopping was one of the leading activities on mobile devices. This has resulted in India becoming a global leader in m-commerce growth in 2015.
Shopping retail giants like Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal has stated that nearly 60-80% of their revenue has been garnered via mobile. Aside from the mobile commerce, the Indian mobile industry has also seen a boom in other sectors such as entertainment, social networking, health, and finance.
The explosive growth of smartphone usage in India has undoubtedly made it a fertile ground for aspiring app developers and marketers. Therefore, it becomes imperative to know how one could successfully thrive within a market that becomes exponentially competitive with every passing day.
Recent research has indicated that an average mobile app has a very short shelf-life, and holding users’ attention and engagement, which is a major challenge that app developers and marketers have to contend with.
Key Challenges
Furthermore, each sector within the economy has its own set of challenges to tackle. What exactly are the challenges faced by Indian app developers?
- Limited Mobile Internet Connectivity & Penetration – This proves as a major stumbling block which impedes the growth of app downloads and usage across the country, especially in the rural markets.
- Payment Infrastructure – There is no proper alignment to buy apps/in-app purchases/subscription, which makes it more difficult for developers to monetise their products.
- Localization – There is a key trend of developing the app in different languages and it is a good trend, but localizing an app to the multitude of local languages requires a lot of time and efforts for a market with multicultural and language diversity.
- Lack of promotional knowledge – While developers may have a great product on hand, it is also part marketing which sells. Indian developers are clueless about when and where to start with the marketing.
- Funding – Whether it is at the seed stage, or bridging rounds to scale up, funding is an uphill task for any mobile app developer/startup in the Indian mobile eco-system. App developers may have trouble with access to the right people and more than often lack the idea on how to pitch the idea to potential investors.
These challenges are not insurmountable if one has a sure idea of how the land lies and how one can leverage the current industry trends to one’s advantage. Hence GMASA aims to bring some of the best forerunners and experts, who have successfully scaled the ladder of achievements in the industry and would share their insights and experiences with aspiring entrepreneurs.
Through the keynote addresses and panel discussions, these experts also address some of the key issues in mobile development and marketing such as app monetization, mobile start-ups, and the various trends in the gaming, travel, business and m-commerce sectors.
Areas of Development
There is much to look forward to in terms of development to the mobile app industry. Gone are the days of top-down communications, disturbing ads and poorly ranged customer outreach campaigns. Today, we sit atop more data than ever, and the insights derived from such amounts of data are leading the next wave of innovation. The industry is coming up with innovative ideas like wearables, the Internet of Things (IoT), marketing automation and deep linking to name a few. The future looks promising.
