Mobile 10X to scale up app revenue to Rs 10,000 cr

To establish five startup hubs in India over next five years

Mobile 10X, a programme initiated by Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) to make India a global app superpower in the next five years, is aiming at scaling up mobile app revenue from Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore by 2019.

"Mobile 10X is in line with mission of Indian government to boost the Indian start-up ecosystem with funds worth Rs 1,000 crore set aside for technology start-ups in the Budget 2015-16.

These are exciting times and our vision is clear - that Mobile 10X will spearhead the app revolution in India," IAMAI president Subho Ray said in a release on Wednesday.

IAMAI today roped in VMAX, an app monetisation platform in India and Southeast Asia, as a founding partner for its Mobile 10X programme. In this initiative, VMAX, Google, Paytm and IAMAI will come together to boost the app ecosystem in India.

The board members for Mobile 10X include VMAX founder and chief executive officer Dippak Khurana, Google vice-president and managing director (Southeast Asia and India) Rajan Anandan, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma and Subho IAMAI president.

The founding partners will work in unison to educate, engage, evangelise and enable app developers in the country. The Mobile 10X programme targets to increase the number of mobile app developers in India from 50,000 to 500,000 over the next five years, IAMAI said.

According to IAMAI, VMAX will play a crucial role in Mobile 10X by running workshops, hackathons, job fests, app fests and mentorship programmes across India.

Mobile 10X will also have five start-up hubs across five Indian cities in the next five years. These start-up hubs will include app testing facilities, design labs, co-working spaces, play zones and monetisation zones.

The monetisation zones will be powered by VMAX, where app developers will be mentored on monetisation, hence transforming them from being app developers to 'app entrepreneurs'.