Apps industry growth is still significant in the UK and throughout Europe, though the really rapid growth areas are Asia and Africa, according to Terence Eden, head of developer community at InMobi.

Developers need to recognise the global nature of apps, he says; your market isn’t just limited to the country or even continent that you live in.

“The UK market is getting saturated,” he adds. “If developers want to unlock the power of what they’re doing they have to translate their apps to all the different app stores around the world.”

Not only that, but he believes developers need to think more strategically about how they’re going to monetise their apps over their entire lifecycle. “Think about that first sale and think about how you’re going to follow that up,” he says. “We can monetise your apps by putting advertising in them.”

With growth in app downloads predominantly around free apps, offering a free version of your app is often a smart way to go. “Once they’ve got your free version, you can upsell them, get them to buy the premium version,” says Eden. “If you want to sell extra functionality or features, we can provide a payment solution for that.”

Eden says his big issue is making developers aware that mobile advertising is also an option for their own business.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re the biggest brand on the planet or some guy in his bedroom working on the next big thing; you can use advertising to get your app out to millions of people, he says. “You can actually make a big splash worldwide with not a huge amount of budget.”

According to a  report from International Telecommunication Union, exponential growth in smartphones, tablets and other web-enabled mobile devices will result in mobile web being more popular than the web as we know. With this paradigm shift, businesses across the globe see opportunities of getting into the hands of their customers, quite literally.

mCommerce products and services that gaining visibility :

Among the many applications of mCommerce, shopping on mobile devices is expected to lead the way

Gartner says there will be 141.1 million m-payment users in 2011 (up 38.2 percent from 2010), m-payments will total US $86.1 billion in 2011 (up 75.9 percent from 2010). Juniper Research estimates total value of mobile payments for digital and physical goods, money transfers and NFC (Near Field Communications) transactions will reach $670bn by 2015, up from $240bn this year.

While the rest of the world trial/dream of payment by mobile, in Japan it is already a way of life

ComScore research indicates that in December 2010 alone, 9.8 million or 10 percent of Japanese mobile subscribers used their mobile wallet to make a purchase. 7.6 million consumers made a purchase in a retail/convenience store; 3.2 million
NFC payments will exceed €110 billion globally in 2015 according to Frost & Sullivan. Also, 863 million units or 53 percent of new handsets will be NFC-enabled by 2015. purchased from a vending machine; 2.7 million paid for public transport; 2.6 million purchased in grocery stores; and 1.5 million paid a restaurant bill all using their mobile phone, instead of cash, card or check.

Shopping on the mobile Web will reach US$119 billion in 2015, predicts ABI Research, that’s about 8 percent of the total e-commerce market. In the US, mobile shopping revenues are expected to hit $6 billion by the end of 2011, growing to $31 billion by 2016, according to Forrester Research.

Gearing up for the future – the need for a Mobile Strategy

Analyst reports clearly indicate that business need to be prepared for these innovations in mCommerce that will change the way shopping is done in the future.

Powerful and intuitive Mobile web development and cross platform mobile development will be key to make or break businesses in the mCommerce space.

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Anubavam will be exhibiting at this year’s Apps World Europe event and will be on stand 56. To book your free exhibition pass please click here.

Apps World and Social Media World Forum Asia are almost upon us. Two shows designed specifically to help delegates build valuable connections in Asia and the rest of the digital world.We have compiled our top suggestions for how you can get the most out of getting connected at the show.

Twitter wall – a feature hard to be missed, located central to the networking hub within the expo area.  To see your tweets broadcasted on our big screens and be in with a chance of becoming the top tweeter at the event don’t forget to include the #AppsWorld and #SMWF hashtags in all your tweets!
Event app - download our event app and Talkbox to allow you to communicate with our speakers and delegates in a completely unique way.   Full details can be found here
Social shindig – come join the party at the annual Social Shindig Asia, this year located in the quirky Clarkes Quay at the Rupee Rooms kicking off from 7.30pm, an excellent opportunity to catch up over a few beverages in a chilled atmosphere
Tweet our speakers – twitter will of course be the order of the day, below you can find a list of many of our speaker’s and special guests twitter handles so you can get the conversation started ahead of the show. If you have a question for one of the speakers don’t forget to use the #SMWFQ and #AppsWorldQ hashtags. View all our speakers here.

Simone Brunozzi, Technology evangelist, Amazon Web Services APAC: @simon
Kriti Kapoor, MD, AppioLabs: @appiolabs
Carey Wee, CMO, AsiaGIS: @AsiaGIS
Mike Ang, President, ATiS: @sgpkop
Faizal Adiputra, Group VAS Business, Bakerie Telecom: @ahabroadband
Daniel Heath, Digital Director, BBC: @danielheaf
Jon Petersen, co-founder, buUuk: @buUuk
Wendy Hogan, VP & Managing Director, CBS Interactive Asia Pacific: @wendy_hogan
Hong Leong Hean, Code Android: @hongster
Jayesh Easwaramony, VP, ICT Practice, Frost & Sullivan: @JEaswaramony
Christian Cadeo, Head of Mobile SE Asia, Google: @christiancadeo
Nicky Wong, Co-Founder, Infindo Technology: @infindo
Glenn Thompson, Country Manager Singapore, iproperty.com: @iProperty_SG
Michael Ong, Project Manager, iproperty.com: @iProperty_SG
Joleen Soo, Manager e-commerce & business development, LUXE City Guides: @LUXEguides
Sandeep Chellappen, Co-founder & director, MB9: @MB9inc
Manish Ladha, Head of mobile services consumer & online, Microsoft: @manishla
Rohit Dadwal, Managing Director APAC, MMA: @rohitdadwal
Zi Yong Chua, Founder, MoVend: @getMoVend
Jorg Krahnert, MD APAC, Netbiscuits: @netbiscuitsAPAC
Yat Siu, Chief Executive Officer, Outblaze: @ysiu
Elvin Tan, Head of Asia, Rdio: @Rdio
Winston Goh, Product Marketing telecommunications, Samsung: @winstongoh
Douglas Gan, Founder & CEO, ShowNearby: @DouglasGan
GP Singh, Director Group strategy, SingTel: @SingTel
CheeMeng Tan, Director of multimedia – music, SingTel: @SingTel
Charles Tidswell, VP Marketing, SmartRoam – makers of ChatTime app: @chattimeapp
Aldric Chang, Chief Executive Officer & co-founder, Swagsoft: @aldric_chang
Jacqueline Chong, Marketing Director, Talkbox: @gtomato
Alvin Yap, Co-founder & CEO, The Mobile Gamer: @alvin_yap
Olivier Legrand, General manager, Digital network, Wall Street Journal Asia: @Olivier_HK
Nico Abbruzzese, Head of digital APAC, Maxus: @nicoabbruzzese
Nitin Acharekar, Marketing Manager, Cisco: @nitin_acharekar
Miguel Bernas, Director of digital marketing, Singtel: @phatfreemiguel
Kelly Choo, co-founder and business developer, Brantology: @kellychoo
Thomas Crampton, Asia Pacific Director, Ogilvy: @ThomasCrampton
Damien Cummings, Online Social Media Director, Dell: @damiencummings
Jonas De Los Reyes, Community Manager and Social Media Strategist, Yahoo: @jonasdelosreyes
Claire Diaz Ortiz, Corporate Social Innovation & Philanthropy, Twitter, Inc.: @claireD
Tina DiCicco, Intercontinental Hotels: @tinadicicco
Reynold D’Silva, Global Brand Manager, Unilever: @ReyDSilva
Mandeep Grover, Regional Marketing Director, Johnson and Johnson Medical: @mgrover1
Robbie Hills, Head of Rich Media, Google: @robbiehills
Patricia Lalisan, Social Media Guru, Alcatel Lucent: @trishlalisan
Ken Mandel, Chairman, IAB Singapore: @kmandel
Paul Papadimitrou, VP & Principle analyst, Constellation Research: @papadimitrou
Enrique Pinilla, Digital Marketing & Operations Manager, 3m: @enriquerp
Alfred Tay, Social Media & Interactive Manager, Asia Pacific Breweries Singapore: @alfredtay
Robin Grant, Managing Director, We Are Social: @RobinGrant
Aneace Haddad, Founder, Taggo: @aneacehaddad
Stephen Hibberd, Director, Tiger Pistol Pty Ltd: @sjh0811
Yasser Ismail, Head of Business Development, Media Pop: @yasz
Alexander Kleinberg, Head of Platform Partnerships, APAC/Japan, Facebook: @akleinberg
Eric Koh, CTO/Co-founder, JobCentral: @erickohsg
Rajiv Kumar, Founder & CEO, RockeTalk Inc: @rkumar00
Vincent Lauria, Co-founder, Lefora.com: @vlauria
Christina Lim, Deputy Director Brand & Marketing, NTUC Fairprice: @chrisspeak
Daphne Maia Loo, Social Media specialist & blogger: @daphnemaia
Adrian Ng, Director, Codigo Pte Ltd: @CodigoMakesApps
Phillip Raskin, Managing Consultant, Text 100: @ziquemu
Willis Wee, Founder, Penn Olson: @williswee
Rupert Daniels, Global Partnerships, Arsenal FC: @Arsenal
Steven Goh, CEO & Co-founder, mig33: @mig33
Keeran Janin, Creative Director, Infido Technology: @keeranj
James Lamberti, VP of Global Research & Marketing, InMobi: @JLambert69
Bernard Leong, Co-founder & CTO, Chalkboard: @bleongcw
Colin Miles, Chairman, MEF Asia: @ColinMiles
Ashwin Puri, VP Business development & MD, SE Asia Vuclip: @vuclip
Thomas Clayton, CEO, Bubble Motion: @bubbletom
Tom Cheong, VP and GM Asia Pacific, Motricity: @motricity
Zhou Wenhan, Co-founder, 2359Media: @ybother
Ashwin Venkatraman, Director and Head of Global Sales, InMobi: @inmobi
Tiang Lim Foo, Business Development & Product Manager, Stream Media: @tianglim

An interactive conference deserves an interactive app. SMWF and Apps World Asia have teamed up with TalkBox to develop this year’s event app, bringing you a unique way to communicate at this year’s conference. TalkBox is all about sending messages with your voice. It’s an application dedicated to saving you the trouble and time of typing so you can get your message across fast!

Talk the message and get your emotions delivered instantly, with no ambiguity in your meaning! Forget SMS and BBM this is the new way to instantly communicate for free with no obligation to reply right away and the ability to listen back to the messages whenever you want.

The other exciting feature of TalkBox is that it gives you the ability to send voice tweets, that are restricted to 1 minute instead of 140 characters.

Have a play with TalkBox at this year’s event and have the opportunity to engage and connect with others at the event by adding them to your TalkBox account allowing you to send voice messages to other delegates to arrange meeting up for a chat, catching a talk together and even your evening plans.

WANT TO GIVE IT A GO?

For full instructions on how to download and use TalkBox click here.

To hear more from TalkBox you can come chat to them at the free to attend exhibition held at SMWF and Apps World Asia, they will be located at stand 4.  For more details on this year’s event and information on how to book your place please visit SMWF and Apps World.

Alvin Koay’s Singapore-based startup MobileApps.com aims to deliver a fairer deal to app developers, providing a pan-platform wholesale app market that allows them to bank more cash from each app that’s sold.

Hailed by some commentators as a ‘Robin Hood’ of the apps industry, MobileApps.com compares favourably to the main app stores in cash terms, delivering 95% of revenue straight to developers, rather than the current industry standard of 70%.

The 5% revenue share for MobileApps is mainly used to fund the administration costs and to cover credit card transfer fees; the company is monetised in an altogether smarter way.

“Most developers are definitely getting a rough deal with other marketplaces, especially carrier stores,” says Koay. “So, we see an opportunity to create a developer-centric market, one that lets them sell directly to end-consumers and cutting out the middle-men.”

The difference with this service however, comes in the form of an algorithm driven ‘smart widget’ that acts as an ecommerce solution for developers to ply their wares. It’s available for publishers to display on their sites, and effectively shows users apps that are relevant to them in a similar way to Google Adsense. Importantly, it also allows publishers to make money from delivering targeted app advertisements.

The widget is currently available for publishers, and allows them to collect 100% of the related revenue for three months, after which the cash is split generally 62/38 in their favour. It isn’t a new idea in principle, but it is something we haven’t yet really seen in the apps space.

A recent analyst report from Nielsen claimed that less than 60% of people use their native app store to find and download apps, with many preferring to find them online and through other means like word of mouth.

Koay believes that at a time when display advertising is experiencing massive growth, engaging, rich media widgets that act as a small app-store, plugged into targeted websites will increase the distributions and discovery channel for developers many times over.

“App discovery has always been an issue with developers, the distributions channel through app stores is very restrictive and apps are easily cluttered out,” he says. “Display ad networks are a proven working model, and offer a far wider distribution model.”

Whether their apps are available through the MobileApps.com site or not, developers can pay for a premium slot on this distribution network, vying for position in the paginated display widget.

For now, Koay is focussing on signing up developers to the MobileApps.com site, with over 4000 developers already signed up; and promoting his advertising widgets to publishers as a free way to make money through hosting apps advertising.

And while he’s keen for the MobileApp.com brand to be launched all over the world, currently looking for partners in non-English speaking markets, Koay believes that Asia is a hot ticket in terms of expansion in the apps industry.

“China is already the 2nd in the world for overall app download and markets in India, South Korea & Thailand are exploding,” he says. “Japan’s proprietary feature phone market is phasing out rapidly and embracing more “open” systems such as Android and iOS, thus creating a brand new market to tap into.”

“Asian economies are booming and more people can afford smartphones and increased data plans, creating voracious app consumers,” he adds. “It’s a good time to be a developer in this region.”

You can meet Alvin at Apps World Asia in Singapore on 1-2 September, where he’ll be discussing the future of apps in Asia and advising developers on how to better monetise and improve the reach of their apps.

Related articles

• New App Marketplace MobileApps.com Pays 95% Cut to Developers, Helps Get Their Apps Discovered With Breakthrough Smart Widgets (prweb.com)
• Why Asia is set to become an App Hotspot (apps-world.net)
• Is the Amazon App Store bad for developers? (intomobile.com)
• MobileApps.com Wants To Be The Adsense For Mobile Apps (techcrunch.com)

This week saw the announcement from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) that a huge S$15 million (USD $12.22 million) is to be set aside for encouraging businesses to develop mobile apps for the service sector.

If that wasn’t a large enough incentive for businesses to get mobile, Singapore is now one of the most mobile-connected countries in the world, currently there are 2.4 million more mobile subscriptions than there are people. It is the predicted future global app hotspot.

According to market research firm, Nielsen this explosion of connectivity in Singapore is said to be down to the popularity of the iPhone and iPad and the increasing availability of cheaper mobile internet tariffs. An indication of the integration of mobile app devices into Singaporean culture is the new initiative from its Defense Ministry to distribute 8,000 iPad 2s to its soldiers to allow them to chat with colleagues and record outfield exercises. Singapore really is a the region for mobile investment in Asia.

So it seems that the mobile market is ready in Singapore and it is time for businesses to think about how best to maximise its potential. The last year has been littered with app success stories, improving the profits of businesses around the world and providing a platform for a new form of start up business. The question is; where to begin? And for companies who have begun; how to stay on top and maintain customer loyalty in an environment with so many subscribers?

These are the key themes of this year’s Apps World Asia conference. Following on from the success of Apps World Africa in June this year, Apps World Asia is set to touch down in Singapore on 1-2 September. Alongside the conference will be a free to attend developer’s track. The program is set to be the best yet, giving developers and businesses rounded and knowledgeable information about creating, monetising and testing new apps as well as providing the opportunity to network and  get involved in the nitty gritty of topics, like developing Android apps, with leading industry experts. Visit the site to register.

Far from taking a well earned summer break, the Apps World team is gearing up for its next major event, Apps World Asia, in Singapore on 1-2 September, preparing to examine apps industry growth, consumer apps marketing and app development in the region.

The Asian apps landscape is one with its own very unique challenges, but also vast opportunities, with unparalleled 3G and broadband access in some areas.

The Asia show will gather the best minds in the industry to examine some of these challenges, and explore some of the potential benefits available for developers, operators, businesses and brands working in the Asian apps space.

Analysing current industry issues, Apps World Asia will cover a range of subjects through workshops, presentations and panel discussions. Issues up for discussion include, operator/ developer relations, handset affordability, app marketing and advertising, addressing the diverse regional and cultural differences across Asia, mobile money, apps and the cloud, TV apps and much more.

Many of the world’s leading brands will be involved with the conference programme or free-to-attend industry exhibition; Google, mixi, Dell, Yahoo, ShowNearby, Ogilvy, Nokia, the International Advertising Bureaux and many more.

Apps World will also include a free-to-attend developer track, bringing local developers face to face with leading organisations on the hunt for talented individuals.

This event is designed to help delegates make useful connections with fellow professionals in their field, as many of the workshops and panel sessions will involve organised networking sessions.

The Apps World TwitterWall will be a key feature of the show, not only projecting show-related tweets up onto a massive screen, but allowing delegates to access a raft of statistics and infographics detailing who the most influential show tweeters are, and even suggesting potential connections to fit with their fields of interest.

Registration for Apps World also entitles you to entry to a second co-locating event, Social Media World Forum (SMWF), which includes the latest cutting edge discussion around how social media is being used by brands and businesses to more effectively connect with customers.

For more information on the Apps World and SMWF sessions visit the Apps World agenda page. And to book your place at this year’s event, click here.

Following the success of a great first Apps World in London last year, we are very excited about the expansion of the Apps World in 2011 and we thought it would be good to give you a heads up on all event destinations for the upcoming year and the all important dates for your diary.

• Apps World Dubai – 2nd & 3rd May 2011
• Apps World Asia – 1st & 2nd Sept 2011
• Apps World NY – 1st & 2nd Nov 2011
• Apps World, Europe – 29th & 30th Nov 2011

If you would like to get involved with Apps World please get in touch with the team:

Sponsorship & Exhibiting – enquiries@sixdegs.com
Speaking – Natasha@sixdegs.com

Whats next for Social TV? Below Mark Groves from NDS talks about whats next for social tv and how this will be intergrated into our exisiting platforms
NDS will be exhibiting at the Social TV and Social Media World Forum on the 15th & 16th March, London 2010. http://www.social-tv.net meet them at stand number 15.