 "Google's Sergio Salvador says carrier billing not the only option for developers to make money")
India has emerged as the third largest country downloading apps from Google's Play store. With Android dominating the Indian handset market, developers have been tirelessly creating applications with the hope that they can get their millions but with no sight of carrier billing being brought in by Google, many developers are facing an uphill task of monetizing.
While Sergio Salvador, global head, Games Partnership, Google did not comment on Google's plan to bring in carrier billing payment system, he believes that game developers should look at getting as many users as possible for their apps and then look at revenue opportunities.
"We would like to get as many services as we can in every country. We are continuously working on how we can bring services that are not in India. Carrier billing is an option for in-app purchases but not the only source of revenue. I think in-app purchase model has to evolve. I think it is the developer who needs to figure out what worked for them better," said Salvador at the recently concluded Nasscom Gaming Summit.
More From This Section
According to a Gartner research, 93% of all app downloads will be free. Salvador said that though in-app purchases are big and growing, in India it is yet to make its mark. Research also shows that 2-6% of mobile users drive 95% of in-app purchase value.
Salvador is of the opinion that advertisement is a good way of making revenues. Google's AdMob, the mobile advertisement platform, has 650,000 applications and serves 1 million advertisements.
"A year back AdMob was a very normal networking platform. We realized overtime that we have the largest network for mobile but it does not work well with ad networks. In the last one-and-a-half year, we have intensified our efforts to support developers in any way we can. In the past year, we have geared up the AdMob platform for gaming developers," added Salvador.
He further pointed out that even before carrier billing comes in, developers can make use of the ad platforms that Google has to offer.
"We have seen the hybrid model of in-app purchases and ads doing very well in other markets. Mobile advertisement is massive. Online advertisement in the US alone is $50 billion, in-app purchase market in the US is about $5 billion. According to a study, ads in mobile game will generate $12 billion revenue in 2014 and this will go up to $16 billion by 2016," he added.
He feels that developers in India should focus on getting users to their apps and figure out what works best for them. "Mobile games are global by nature, it is the developer who has to take the call. For instance, someone here asked me if they have a local game around an Indian festival and would Google promote such games? Absolutely yes. We have done that in the past. This could be some day a monitising effort by developers," said Salvador.
He also cautioned developers who are too hung-up on in-app purchases. "You also have to understand that use of credit cards is still low in India so that eliminates a certain amount of revenue source.