Etisalat to dominate mobile application segment

Indunil HEWAGE

Etisalat - Sri Lanka is gearing up to spread its dominance in the mobile application segment which is growing rapidly across the world, said Etisalat CEO Dumindra Ratnayake

“The booming mobile application market in the world has created more avenues for operators, mobile application developers, individuals and has enormous potential to generate more money. Etisalat is focusing on increasing the company’s revenue base through the mobile application segment. However, traditional contents such as SMS,personal ring back tone (PRBT) and WAP contents are still good platforms where Etisalat has very solid revenue base. But we need to grow our revenue and I believe that this new revenue will come from mobile applications,” he said.

Today Mobile phone has become a necessity in the society and smart phones

has given more opportunities for applications.iSyndrome,mobile application is not just a strategy. However,mobile application becomes a strategy when you also know how to monetize it . Monetizing applications is not limited operators, content aggregators , corporates and who have no connection whatsoever in applications.

Mobile applications give customers’ endless possibilities. It gives us the ability to communicate with consumers in a language they understand. Sri Lanka has a large number of application developers and Etisalat is focusing on the developing talented mobile applications developers and has already created a platform or developers to interface with the network to develop mobile applications based on MMS and SMS .

According to the ‘World Mobile Applications Market (2010 – 2015)’ report, the total global mobile applications market is expected to be worth $25 billion by 2015,up from about $6.8 billion in 2010.

The research predicts Apple’s App Store to hold nearly 20.5 percent of that particular cake, while the global market is forecast to record a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of 29.6 percent from 2009 to 2014. The various factors that will be contributing to that growth, from advancements in network technologies to the lowering of mobile data usage cost, growing adoption of smart-phones around the world, and a continuous increase in application usability.