Apple's app economy is bigger than Hollywood. Which are the top developers from India?
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Hello hello! Hope you're high on energy on this Monday morning. If you want something really contextual according to dates, why not go ahead and read the Constitution of India? :)
Well, the logistics meetup last week went off well with companies like Shippr and eCourierz sharing their journey with a small group of entrepreneurs all of whom intend to do something in the field of logistics. I'll be sharing the video from the meetup in a week's time till then you can subscribe to YourStory's YouTube channel.
Coming to this week's newsletter, we have something to with apps, hollywood and India. A recent report by Asymco highlighted a a point that made for a great headline- Apple's App economy is bigger than Hollywood! Apple paid more than $10 billion to developers across the world in 2014. The numbers look very promising:
- $500 million spent on iOS apps in first week of January 2015
- Billings for apps increased 50% in 2014
- Cumulative developer revenues were $25 billion (making 2014 revenues 40% of all app sales since store opened in 2008)
- 627,000 jobs created in the US
- 1.4 million iOS apps catalog is sold in 155 countries
There have been different views to the analogy but the scale is surely something worth pondering about.
Today being the Republic day, I decided to dive deeper into Apple's featured apps in the 'Made in India' section on the iPad and focus on the companies that are there behind some of the most popular apps. There are apps like Cleartrip, Mobikwik, Jabong, Housing and Newshunt but I'm highlighting some of five companies which are not talked about that often:
1) Camera Plus: An app by Global Delight, this wing of Robosoft focuses on Mac and iPhone apps for photos, videos and music. The app is priced at INR 120 and Global Delight as a whole as more than 35 million downloads. Here's a complete case study of the Udupi based company.
2) A R Rahman Official: There is an interesting story here. This app is right up there in the featured apps section and allows users to keep up to speed with the musician. The description says that the app is powered by Qyuki and TopFan. Backed by A R Rahman and Shekhar Kapur, Qyuki has had a tipsy turvy journey and after the dust settled, the situation is that Qyuki would be doing content around music from Universal Music Group (UMG), and its affiliated publishing entity, Universal Music Publishing Group (read more) and on the other hand, TopFan hardly has any representation on the net but has built some of the most popular celebrity apps. Stay tuned to YourStory for more.
3) PhotoSplash: This one is a bit of a surprise. Developed by Vijaya Kumar Reddy Doddavala who runs a not so aesthetic looking website- PhotoAndVideoApps.com but has his app right up there along with the biggies. PhotoSplash is basically a free application that lets users add colour effects.
Cynapse's Numerics, Times Music's Spiritual Radio, Calzy (productivity) and Stacks (Finance) by WappleStuff make up the rest of the list of apps which you might not have heard of. Here is a snapshot of all the featured 'Made In India' apps for your investigative cells:
