Android looking to take iPhone's crown

Android in Thailand has not so far been very popular comparing with the iPhone, but Google's mobile operating system is gaining ground and even has the prospect to exceed Apple over the next few years in the worldwide market.

Conexus Mobile Alliance, one of Asia's largest mobile phone associations, says today there are around 1,100 Android-based applications developed across 11 operators in 13 member countries.

The Alliance last week announced the 13 finalists for its Android application development program. Two applications from Thailand - Sawan Ban Na (Paradise Farm) and ThaiTopLoad - were selected by True Move, a member of Conexus, to be showcased.

"Supported by its business model and open architecture, Android is gaining ground among smart phone operating systems," said Benjamin Ho, EVP Corporate Strategy & Development of Far East Tone Telecommunications of Taiwan, on behalf of EVP of Conexus Mobile Alliance.

He noted that Android proportion in this year has only 1.6 percent of the worldwide handset operating systems, of which there is a total of 180 million worldwide, but this is expected to increase to 18 percent by 2012, by which time the number of total smart phone handsets worldwide is forecast to be 525 million.

Compared with iPhone, which has been on the market for two years, Android is just six months old. "So we believe Android will catch up very soon," Ho said.

Why Android OS? Ho said that because it's free and thus device vendors are more likely to support it.

Ho pointed out that mobile Internet is outpacing desktop Internet adoption. Citing Morgan Stanley, Ho noted that the churn usage of portal websites such as Yahoo, MSN and Google, is going down, while the social networking sites such as YouTube and Facebook are growing.

In Japan, mobile social networking is rising three times greater than desktop social networking.

"Almost everything you do on the community site, from messaging to chat, checking email, sharing music/video/photos and stories, is called next-generation," said Ho, noting that all these activities are now available in the mobile sector.

Smart phone penetration in Asia Pacific currently is around 13 percent, and it is estimated to grow to 24 percent by 2014, with social networking sites being a major growth driver.

In the past, it was very difficult to find content to put on the feature phone platform, but with smart phones, all content comes from Internet domains.

Ho said faster web downloads and browsing capability puts smart phones above even powerful feature phones, meaning that smart phone users use a lot of content.

According to Kaizad Heerjee, PT Indosat director and chairman of Conexus, the open platform will encourage more developers to come up with innovative, user-friendly and commercially viable mobile apps that could boost the take-up of mobile data in Asia-Pacific.

Over 1,000 designs were submitted for the program, and a shortlist of 400 was drawn up, demonstrating the ability of mobile developers in Asia-Pacific to engage the consumer with surprise and innovation.

The 13 submissions selected by the Alliance showcase the region's best applications, and these will receive the majority spotlight among the Alliance's mobile customer base of more than 240 million users, he said.

According to Ho, applications are important and for one to be successful, it has to fit the local culture. Language is therefore important, and of course it must serve the needs of the target audience.

But beyond this, Ho said certain content, for example music videos, are not so language-dependent. Conexus is trying to focus on these areas.

The Alliance introduced the Android application development program region-wide in June. Today, there are around 1,100 applications.

"We are very surprised with such [an impressive] number after less than five months, and we have a target of 500 new applications a year," Ho said.

Conexus is particularly encouraging travelling apps. "Whether Singapore, Hong Kong, or Thailand, we started from each market and today we are discussing on the board how to take this forward," he said, pointing out that then alliance will do this by talking to those developers as they are very creative but don't necessarily know what requirements are involved.

Ho emphasises that the applications must be not complicated. "Consumers like simple applications, so the developers must make applications that are so easy then even our mothers or fathers can use."

Conexus will also provide to the community of developers guidance as to which kinds of applications have the most potential.

"We will be promoting the android app to our third party and will eventually financially reward these developers," the EVP noted.

True Move, a member of Conexus, has selected two applications to showcase at the regional program, ThaiTopLoad and Sawan Ban Na.

The former is developed by a team at True Move and is an application that allows users to enjoy daily updates of video clips most watched by Thai Internet users, for example music videos and movie trailers.

The latter is a game developed by the Project Saturday Team. Sawan Ban Na (Paradise Farm) allows players to become traditional Thai rice farmers.

Players will need to apply their management skills to plan and farm off the land. The player who manages to best live off the land and produce the best yield inside the given time limit will be awarded the most points.

True Corp CIO Information Convergence Pichit Thanyodom noted that True has launched the True App Centre Awards for students and members of the public to show off their applications. The contest is for applications running on iPhone, Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Blackberry.

This is the stage open to Thai software developers to fully demonstrate their talents.

"If they develop just one application that becomes a hit with consumers, it can create an opportunity in the global market," Pichit said.

True has presented to subscribers its app store, where more than 45 applications, mainly on iPhone, are now available. The top three categories at True App Store are game, entertainment and utilities.

" But all these apps can be ported on to Android," the CIO said.

Pichit believes that Android will be absolutely booming in the future, saying that True will announce a collaboration with Google soon.

"The open platform is welcoming for talent developers, while Symbian OS is a closed system and complicated for developers, he said.

"Nokia has also realised that they cannot survive if they maintain this strategy and therefore they have announced they will go to open source."

As handsets are getting ever smarter, together with improved communication networks, these will boost growth in the application market, said Pichit, adding that apps can create differentiation and over the next year the apps will play a more important role and create a more competitive market.

Conexus roaming packages

Conexus Mobile Alliance recently delivered mobile roaming packages across Asia to business travellers with a pay-per-day data roaming plan and new mobile data roaming plan for the BlackBerry smart phone. True Corp International Services Business general manager Supoj Mahapan said TrueMove subscribers pay only 399 baht per day for roaming in member countries.

"The package has boosted the company's business over 200 percent," he said.

According to Conexus chairman Kaizad Heerjee, customers of Conexus member operators can also enjoy a SMS roaming rate of 20c (6.75 baht) per message within Conexus member countries.

The Alliance has also launched a BlackBerry sim card and handset replacement policy for subscribers who lose their phones, and a BlackBerry quick dial application for BlackBerry subscribers travelling in Alliance member countries.

Conexus, meanwhile, announced a partnership with NTT Communications to deliver hosted exchange program for multinational corporations looking to expand their operations in Asia.

The new one-stop service will enable multinational corporations to set up email servers, smart phone procurement and mobile tariff plans in any country with a Conexus member presence.

Relate Search: Sawan Ban Na game, Conexus Mobile Alliance, Benjamin Ho, EVP Corporate Strategy & Development of Far East Tone Telecommunications of Taiwan