While most developers’ attention is currently focused on North America and Europe, it may be time for iPhone developers to reconsider Asia.  Although the United States has been and still is by far the largest market, China recently became the second largest market in terms of total download volume.  Furthermore, when looking at Asia, a surge in volume could be observed while concurrently download volumes in France and Germany have been declining since December 2010.

The download volume in Asian countries grew significantly in the past six months in the Apple App Store for iPhone.  While other (Western) countries saw a decrease in download volume during the same time frame.  China recently became the second largest iOS market after the U.S.  The download volume in South Korea is remarkably high despite the relatively small size of the country’s population.  Moreover, because the Games category is absent in the Apple App Store for iPhone in South Korea, all downloads are allocated to non-Games, while in other countries, the Games category is, without exception, the largest.  This fact makes South Korea an especially interesting country for publishers and developers in the non-games space.

A comparison of the most popular categories between the U. S. and Asia revealed that there are no significant differences between content preferences.  Hence, iPhone developers could offer the same type of applications in both Asia and the U. S..  The majority of the most popular iPhone applications in Asia is only popular in Asia, but in some Asian countries, worldwide popular applications prevail.  In general, however, localization appears to be key to becoming popular especially when considering countries like China, South Korea, and Japan.  In countries like India and Indonesia, localization appears to be less important.

When analyzing the difference between publishing in Asia and the Western world, Distimo found that paid applications and in-app purchases are not yet popular with and hence, other monetization options have to be considered to become successful in Asia.  The proportion of paid downloads and overall revenue still lag behind that of the U.S. and Europe.  Moreover, while in-app purchases became an important revenue generating method over the last year in many countries, it has not yet in Asia.  Thus, developers will have to look for other ways of monetization, such as advertising, for now and the near future.

Currently, more than 1/2 of the world’s population owns a mobile phone, and we are slowly arriving at the point where the world’s entire population will live in range of a mobile network.  Mobile phones have become the ubiquitous and indispensable digital devices on the planet.

We are already witnessing the vast changes in society that a mobile phone carrying population brings.  From micro-coordinating meetings to negotiating the streets and shops of foreign cities, the mobile phone has evolved from a relatively straightforward communications device into the hub of power for more than one-half of the world’s population.  People are using their mobiles to navigate the ebb and flow of daily life… all just 26 years after personal cellular technology first became a commercial reality.

1.  Value over Culture:  Value of mobile services rather than the cultural environment in which they are developed.  Interaction, entertainment, expression, and transaction.

2.  The Law of the Ecosystem:  The roles of all players (wireless technology, carriers, device manufacturers, platform and content creators) must remain in collaborative balance.

3.  The Value of Time Zones:  Think about the new value of “in-between” time and “golden time” in your busy day.  How does mobile now allow for time to be stretched, bent, and extended?  Ubiquity = everywhere and mobile rules the omnipresent with activities at all times.

4.  Mobile-specific business models are essential to sustain growth:  Companies that curate, package and make sense of content while delivering a brand immersive experience to customers will dominate.

5.  The future is “simplexity:”  Mobile  platforms must be designed for data and linked economics, engagement and communities of interest, participation and social convergence, and above all, service, convenience and context.

6.  The Law of Empowerment:  The vibrant, robust mobile platform allows for one of the greatest impacts on consumer behavior to date.  The mobile platform empowers modern businesses to attract and retain more loyal customers while opening doors for new definitions of security and privacy.  Mobile is literally a remote control for life.

10.  Evangelize the channel:  Spreading the word to the C-suite of your company that mobile is not a one-off project for a junior marketer.  A mobile strategy, creative assets optimized for mobile, and content relevant to what users want on mobile are top priorities.

9.  Mobile marketing requires you to increase your brandwidth: Think about how you will scale your brand across all possible development platforms, the resources that will require and the strategies that will support an overarching brand position.

8.  Don’t expect what you don’t inspect:  Generating quality mobile experiences that deliver more relevance to users, our mobile devices are only as smart as the app developers, the device manufacturers, the networks and the brands that create the apps.  Institute standards and checkpoints all along the journey.

7.  Re-ground your development conversation every 10 minutes:  Mobile, and what that means for the user, is changing by the moment.  “Make it iPod simple” should be the mantra… simplicity with a laser-focus on business objectives.

6.  Nail the mobile touchpoints:  Infuse all customer touchpoints with comprehensive brand attributes and remember that mobile is a “reach” vehicle.

5.  Develop brand specific and mission-statement-worthy apps:  Yet realize that apps are permanent reminders of your competency… or lack of it.

4.  Mobile is a conversation that still begins on a phone:  Here’s your opportunity to be an asset or to be irrelevant by encouraging the user to do more than talk.

3.  It’s their device and you’re a guest, so while you’re there, behave:  Every time they open the device, you are re-earning permission to be there.

2.  The platform wars are far from over:  The platforms most used by mobile developers are… 60% Android, 48% iOS, 47% Java MT, 45% Symbian, 43% mobile web, 43% Blackberry

1.  They aren’t mobile devices:  They’re brand value proposition re-evaluation devices.

Yesterday in San Francisco, over 5200 iOS developers gathered at WWDC 2011 to hear the keynote address by Steve Jobs and other Apple executives.  Chief among new iOS 5 features is Newsstand, and our SPIN Play app was highlighted to give a direct example of how useful this new feature will be to app developers moving forward.

If you’ve been having a difficult time finding and getting your hands on the periodicals you enjoy on your iPad, Apple just announced a remedy to your problem.  Built in to iOS 5 is a new app called Newsstand which is designed to make it easy for you to find, purchase, and subscribe to your favorite newspapers and magazines on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch.

Newsstand will add magazine, newspaper and other subscription-based apps to a new “Newsstand” section on Apple’s AppStore and on iOS devices.  If NewsStand looks a lot like iBooks, it should:  the app is designed from the same general principle and has a similar look and feel.

Newsstand will add the ability for magazines and newspaper publishers and deliver their content to users much like they do with their print versions.  When new content is released by a publisher on the iPad, it will be sent to users who have subscriptions to that publication automatically.  This means that users will not have to search to find out when or if new content is available.  Newsstand will deliver the content to the user and let them know when it has arrived.

Delivered via background downloads, Newsstand will not interfere with the user’s interaction with their device and can even be delivered overnight while the user is asleep to be available the next morning.  Automatically updating the user’s “Newsstand” app with the new issue or newspaper cover once it is available, developers will be able to incorporate these features into their apps with the Newsstand kit in Apple’s iOS 5.

Here at Bottle Rocket, we are excited about the announcement because we will be incorporating the Newsstand kit into our ground-breaking content management system, Issue Publisher™, which was used to power the critically acclaimed SPIN Play app.  Issue Publisher™, available now, will provide Newsstand integration when Apple launches iOS 5 this Fall.