Pushing the limits: The App Ecosystem

– Keshav Bansal, Director, Intex Technologies

India is characterized by a high service dearth that ICT industry can potentially upgrade. Access and inclusion to basic services that include healthcare, education, agricultural information and finance are vital to uplift Indians out of deficiency and empower them into being self-sufficient agents. Given that India’s tele-density is well over 70% and that mobile telephony is the one technology that has stretched nearly all income strata, there is prospective to use India’s mobile backbone to enable a host of presently unmet demands.

Keshav Bansal

Director, Intex Technologies

Mobile penetration pushes mcommerce in India

Recent research reports show that India, the fastest growing smartphone market globally, has over 250million smartphone users and over 350 million Internet users. Of the 350 million, over 60% users access Internet through mobiles. This clearly indicates the next wave of growth in Internet penetration will be driven by adoption of Mobile Internet. Moreover, around 9 billion apps will be downloaded in India in 2015, more than five times the number of apps downloaded in 2012 (1.56 billion) at a cumulative annual growth rate (CAGR) of 75 percent.

It is extensively approved that India is now at the verge of entering the second phase of its telecommunications revolution which is positioned on content. India’s connectivity should be subjugated to provide content that allays informational irregularities, helps indenture creation and implementation, and simplifies lives of its people as well as comforts the processes of its administration agencies and business enterprises.

App development, distribution and demand are the three essential features for the success of the app economy and their expansion depends on the system infrastructure, policy framework, operational system, consumer strategies and socio-economic conditions.

$143 bn global app economy

The world is fast moving from e-commerce to m-commerce. We’re already accessing social media, shopping, banking, bill payments, entertainment and trading stocks on mobiles, and the market is only set to expand and grow from here. In India app growth is led by factors like mounting mobile Internet penetration, cheaper smartphones, and mobile-ready regional content have led to the growth of this ecosystem. According to Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), India is expected to have the largest number of software developers by 2017. It has around 300,000 app developers and is already the second largest Android developer community in the world after the U.S. Having said that, there still are a number of key building blocks necessary for facilitating a robust mobile application ecosystem. Many of these are now in place, and the stage is set for mobile applications to become a primary engine for driving up new mobile data usage.

Burgeoning smartphone and mobile internet usage, a growing developer community and the potential for regional / localised apps are surely to favour an app revolution in India in near future. As per IAMAI, increase in local language content will lead to a growth of 39% in internet user base, with rural India being the primary driver of this growth (75%) and urban India to grow at 16%.

The global app economy was $53 billion in 2012 and is expected to rise up to $143 billion by 2016 at a growth rate of about 28 %( App economy forecasts 2013-2016 report). To truly move forward, the Indian app ecosystem must start acknowledging its essential role and emphasis not only on gaining international keenness through enhanced user interface design but also on catering to the 1.3 billion citizens that reside within India.