Home-grown VAS providers launch app stores

Domestic value-added services (VAS) companies are gearing up to launch a gamut of applications (apps) on their own stores. Hyderabad-based VAS infrastructure and services provider IMImobile, for instance, will introduce its own developers’ forum in the second quarter of this year, which will help developers write new applications for enterprises.

“Unlike the iPhone app store where one can download an app and the operator charges for data, our forum will go through the operator’s billing system. We expect over 500 apps to be on the forum by the end of 2011. These will be offered through 80 operators globally. We will take 15-20 per cent of the revenues, while the remaining will be shared between the operators and the developers,” said Vishwanath Alluri, chief executive officer of IMImobile.

At present, the global apps market is approximately $4.4 billion. According to a Juniper Research forecast, combined revenues from apps, funded by pay-per-download, VAS (including freemium and subscription) and advertising are expected to rise to $32 billion by 2015.

CanvasM, a joint venture between Tech Mahindra and Motorola Inc, recently launched its apps store and has more than 40,000 applications on its platform, primarily catering to entertainment, games and utilities. It plans to add about 20,000 more apps. These apps are designed for all platforms except Apple. Talking about the potential of such applications, Alluri said operators today are able to get 7-10 per cent of their revenues from VAS, excluding P2P (peer-to-peer) SMS services, while it is nearly 25 per cent in the West.