asia

India Focused Edition From BBC To Be Launched. Why The Rising Interest In India?

by Paul Joseph November 3, 2011 Featured

Yesterday BBC.com, the international news website of The BBC, had announced the launch of three new editions – for India, Asia and Australia/New Zealand, a little later a small update revealed that the India Edition is slightly delayed & will be launched later this month on the 21st. The statement from BBC said, “ The new edition will provide more in-depth analysis, breaking news and business bulletins for the region, in addition to specially commissioned features and reports.The site will also expand News, Sport and Travel coverage focused on the region, and will offer localized weather reports, increased features from local correspondents and video content ”. BBC went on and elaborated that the editions will be customized to each territory through the use of Geo-IP technology . The portal will automatically load the Indian edition for users physically present in India by means of Geo Tagging (GPS enabled mobile devices) & IP tracking (PC/work-stations). Chris Davies, Acting Managing Director, for BBC.com said: “ At present BBC.com is the leading international news website in Asia-Pacific with 11.1 million unique users per month.   These editions are the response to overwhelming audience feedback and testing and will ensure even greater engagement from new and existing users .” Another important feature these “Editions” will have is BBC.com ’s Specially Commissioned Reports which have always received critical acclaim & many awards world-wide for their fearless & daring revelations. Some of the upcoming multi-part series that will be featured are: Start-Up Stories China – Eight-part weekly series investigating how entrepreneurs in China are transforming the country, and the world. Generation Asia – Eight-part series exploring the huge changes sweeping across the continent and the impact of them on a new generation of Asians. India Direct – A series of reports which will run in tandem with the India Direct season of programming on BBC World News. China’s Global Reach – In line with the G20 summit, this series of eight reports will complement the Global Economy section of the News website, focusing on the key role China is now playing, and will continue to play, in the global economy. The New Middle Class – Two additional reports from the BBC series looking at financial decisions facing a new generation of middle class Asians, this time focusing on India. While some are abandoning , everyone else is embracing India, with Investments to localized editions ! India Truly Shining? Looking For A Social Media Agency?? – Contact WATConsult – India’s Leading Social Media Agency

Tagged as: asia, australia, bbc.com, china, Featured, india, international, news

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Mobile App Market Is Projected To Generate $35 Billion, Globally By 2014

by Paul Joseph September 13, 2011 Featured

Spending more and more time online, the consumers need to stay connected all the time. The government has already taken notice of this and the first National Policy on IT is being drafted at present. India has over 65 million active internet users and nearly 900 million mobile handsets, so the mobile app market is entering its best phase in the country. Recent reports project that the mobile applications market will grow to an astounding $35 billion by the year 2014. Angel investors and venture capital firms seem to have taken notice of this and are investing various existing companies and startup’s like never before in India. SMS GupShup , one of first Indian company to enter the mobile social networking domain, had their fifth round of funding in end-August. Some of the other players in the mobile application development field who have had an influx of funding recently include Sourcebits and Onward Mobility. The fact that 3G network adoption is on the rise and that a large number of internet users preferred device to stay connected is most likely going to be a mobile device, has spurred investor interest. Ovum, an analyst firm, predicted that the number of mobile application downloads will be around 5 billion in the Asia-Pacific region by the end of 2011. That will be three times the number of mobile app downloads at the end of 2010, which stood at 1.6 billion. India is now a major player in this region and a significant number of downloads will originate from here. This further highlights the fact that ‘now’ is the best time for startup’s to enter the market. But just a great idea will not suffice. A startup has to have a long-term plan and their product/idea should be scalable. They also need to decide which platform they will concentrate on. Apple iOS has been the dominant platform till now for both smartphones and tablets, but most reports indicate that Android is all set to become the numero uno. Add to this mix the new Windows Phone 7 (also known as Mango), which promises to be an interesting platform. The Indian mobile app development companies, like Spice Labs, are already making headlines in the app download category. Spice Labs, which has 21 applications (both free and paid) in Blackberry App World has registered more than 1 0 million downloads till date . Indian smartphone users love their apps and use the same at home, while traveling and also at work. A study conducted jointly by Professor Trevor Pinch of Cornell University and Nokia reveals that Indian consumers put higher importance to the quality of an app than on the quantity of apps in their smartphones. Another survey conducted by Inmobi and comScore points out that Indian mobile users do not mind receiving advertisements on their phones. The Indian mobile app market has the potential to grow like no other. Startup’s and existing players need to concentrate on developing apps which can enable commerce through mobile and which can provide the user content customized according to their usage history. The rural market in India is vast and as mobile handset penetration increases, local content apps will become extremely important. What kind of apps do you use? Do you think apps improve your smartphone experience? Lets us know. By: Riddhi M

Tagged as: asia, digital, india, shopping, social-media, technology, web, windows

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Asia-Pacific Consumers Shop Via Mobile Devices – InMobi

by Paul Joseph May 3, 2011 Featured

A study conducted by InMobi (Global Mobile Advertising Network) between February and March have reveled that the consumers in Asia- Pacific region preferred shopping via mobile devices. This study was carried in 14 countries including five Asia markets: Singapore, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. The study also reveals that 44% consumers aged between 19- 25 years are more active with their shopping spree on their mobile phones, while 41% aged between 25- 34 years . Consumers mostly preferred m-commerce because it is easily and convenient unlike PC’s. Following is the data for Consumer’s mobile purchases: In Asia, the purchases for digital content– music, videos, games: 43% Consumer electronics– 24% Entertainment tickets– 15% Travel– 12% Apparel– 11% It should be also noted that the study also found 56% consumers said their mobile shopping experience was good, 18% said it was excellent, 22% said it was average, while only 2% said the experience was poor. With this statistics the mobile advertising industry is surely going to accelerate given the fact, huge opportunities are displayed for them. According to Lamberti, InMobi’s executive, ” The mobile advertising in the Asia is going to be phenomenal for two reason. First, the penetration of smartphone in Asia . Second, The advancement in technology will led to more creativity providing rich media and ad experience across all mobile phones”. Recently, we have reported that travel portal, job portal, property portals, bank service have opted going mobile as well. m-commerce is definitely heading towards huge success. Check the Winners Of WATAwards Here Related Posts Guruji.com Launches Mobile Ads Optimization Platform -’AdIQuity’ InMobi Lures Developers With Higher Rev Share – Announces World Developer Fund India Is The Largest Mobile Advertising Market In APAC : Inmobi Indians Most Receptive To Mobile Ads : Inmobi Survey After BlackBerry, BuzzCity Launches In-App Advertising For Android

Tagged as: asia, data, indonesia, international, largest-mobile, malaysia, mobile, statistics

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Google Ramps Up Monetisation Strategy For Indian Market

by Paul Joseph April 25, 2011 Featured

In India, the number of internet users is growing in an inexorably high rate and currently stands at over a 100 million. Google, the search engine giant can’t afford to miss the chance to cash in on that. In an interview with CNBC-TV18, Shailesh Rao the managing director of the media business of Google for the Asia Pacific region and Rajan Anandan, managing director of Google in India, discussed how the company will swell itself in this expanding market. As per Google, the internet userbase in India has reached an inflection point and the company plans to monetize this in various ways. Google’s strategy would be five-fold : Increasing the strength of its sales team Making partnerships with ad agencies Collaborating with SMEs and helping them in advertising their products Increasing cloud servicing Focusing more on mobile and display advertising Anandan said that in India, most of the searches by users are entertainment related. But at the same time, people also search for cars, accessories, sports, locations etc. This might be a typical characteristic of Indian online users, but Rao explained how some of the tendencies amongst Indian consumers coincide with users from other regions. For example, with the expansion of e-commerce, Indian users are not only searching for various products and services but, whenever the cost of a product or service goes down, a huge number of users visit Google and search. This relationship between prices of devices or accessory going down and jump in usage of Google holds almost everywhere, as in India. As far as mobile technologies are concerned, Rao and Anandan said that in India, 40 million users access internet via mobile devices and 95 percent of them use feature phones. They hoped that by 2015, there will be around 750 million internet users in India and almost half of them will access internet on mobile phones. That’s why Google is utterly serious in providing users with a mobile technology platform. Google is also looking forward to become the viable medium of advertising for SMBs. Rao and Anandan said that nearly 50000 websites are listed in Google’s display network and amongst the top 25 advertisers in India, 22 advertise on Google. They want to put the same amount of importance on the SMBs which they put on the large enterprises. Google is emphasizing on cloud computing also. This is because the company noticed that as most small enterprises don’t spend money on advertising, same is the case when it comes to software, the same approach remains. By using cloud computing, Google wants to generate low cost software and reach out to these companies. Earlier we had also reported that Google is launching a marketing campaign to promote display advertising in India. Google had also announced previously that it is partnering with production houses in India to release Bollywood films on YouTube and it has also partnered with Indiatimes to stream the live matches of the IPL. Although Orkut has lost its thrown as the top social networking site in India. Google still considers it a viable market and keeps pushing out new features. It is not surprising that Google is shifting its focus to India. India is a growing market which is passionate about its internet usage. The Indian users have become matured and do not want to be kept away from new features and products which their western counterparts enjoy. The companies which realize this and take the right steps would able tap this rich market. Google certainly seem to be moving on the right path. With Google’s new initiatives the country would be benefited from various aspects. There will be a lot of opportunities created for the Indian youth to work at one of the best companies of the web. The Indian consumers would get access to a galore of new products and the SMBs would be able to utilize one of the best advertising mediums available today. Indian ad agencies would also increased action as Google starts partnering with them to draw in more advertisers. What’s your take on this move that Google has announced? Check the Winners Of WATAwards Here Related Posts Google Launches Marketing Campaign For Display Advertising In India Google Zeitgeist 2010 Is Here – What Did India Search For? Mobile Advertising On A High Aircel Launches 3G! Who is Next? Gmail Mobile In Hindi And Teach Parents Tech – Google’s Holiday Tips and Tricks?

Tagged as: advertising, aircel-launches, asia, google-launches, google-maps, holiday, india-google, Indian, internet, mobile, news, social-networking

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