Inspired by Jobs, handset firm plans a desi apps store
S. Mobility, handset maker, is looking to create a base of 100,000 apps
How do you get an average Indian hooked to the internet on his or her mobile phone?
That's the quandary faced by service providers who have paid hefty prices for 3G spectrum, but are seeing low data usage. This is affecting their revenues, while the sales of feature-rich smartphones, too, are staying low.
Dilip Modi, managing director of S. Mobility (till recently known as Spice Mobility), a mobile handset maker, wants to change all that.
Hugely inspired by Steve Jobs, the legendary CEO of Apple Inc, Modi sees this as a big opportunity.
The handset maker aims to become a leading developer of mobile applications in India by setting up incubation centres and bringing in hundreds of developers to create a lakh of applications to be retailed via the company's apps stores.
"In the US, people buy an iPad or an iPhone and use the iStore. Here you buy a smartphone and yet don't use the internet. The challenge lies there: When we have 800 million mobile users how to get 500 million mobile net users? I feel internet usage is not going up primarily because we don't have the right device. It is not that intuitive, like, say, an Apple product," Modi said on the sidelines of a meeting of industry body Assocham, which he currently heads as its president.
His company would unveil the first such incubation centre in Delhi on November 19. The first one is coming up at Noida, where S. Mobility is headquartered, followed by Bangalore by March, he said.
"If someone has an idea for building a mobile application, we will have a website where one can post ideas. If the proposition looks feasible, we will give capital — up to Rs.50 lakh per application — to invest in that idea, and will give space within our Apps store, called Spice Hotspots, to monetise the product," Modi said without putting an investment figure to the venture.
"Our idea is to develop 100,000 applications developed for us. Simply put, our goal is to put internet access in the hands of every citizen of India. We would give them a phone with an internet access that works well. If you look at smartphones, they are not internet friendly and as such not a lot of people are using those phones to access the internet: Mostly for voice, then texting, and some amount of music and photo. Our idea is to make them use the internet," Modi said.
S. Mobility earlier worked on a gaming development centre where application developers came and started building for BlackBerry. Modi now wants them to create games for Spice's own devices, and also applications for healthcare, education and utilities going forward.
Apart from the software and retail, Modi has big plans for Spice Hotspot branded apps stores - creating cheap feature-rich smartphones.
Modi's partners are Taiwan-based MediaTek, a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications, and Shenzhen Tinno Mobile Technology Corp, which is working on mobile phones exclusively designed for the group's presence in India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
"In the market you have feature phones and you have smartphones; what we are manufacturing is a new category, smart feature phones, at price points that would be below Rs.5,000," he said. S. Mobility's two such phones, Samba and Carnival, made their debut during Diwali.
Tablets are Modi's another sweet spot.
"We have just launched our 7.2 inch tablet and are going to launch a 10.7 inch one soon."
S. Mobility, handset maker, is looking to create a base of 100,000 apps
How do you get an average Indian hooked to the internet on his or her mobile phone?
That's the quandary faced by service providers who have paid hefty prices for 3G spectrum, but are seeing low data usage. This is affecting their revenues, while the sales of feature-rich smartphones, too, are staying low.
Dilip Modi, managing director of S. Mobility (till recently known as Spice Mobility), a mobile handset maker, wants to change all that.
Hugely inspired by Steve Jobs, the legendary CEO of Apple Inc, Modi sees this as a big opportunity.
The handset maker aims to become a leading developer of mobile applications in India by setting up incubation centres and bringing in hundreds of developers to create a lakh of applications to be retailed via the company's apps stores.
"In the US, people buy an iPad or an iPhone and use the iStore. Here you buy a smartphone and yet don't use the internet. The challenge lies there: When we have 800 million mobile users how to get 500 million mobile net users? I feel internet usage is not going up primarily because we don't have the right device. It is not that intuitive, like, say, an Apple product," Modi said on the sidelines of a meeting of industry body Assocham, which he currently heads as its president.
His company would unveil the first such incubation centre in Delhi on November 19. The first one is coming up at Noida, where S. Mobility is headquartered, followed by Bangalore by March, he said.
"If someone has an idea for building a mobile application, we will have a website where one can post ideas. If the proposition looks feasible, we will give capital — up to Rs.50 lakh per application — to invest in that idea, and will give space within our Apps store, called Spice Hotspots, to monetise the product," Modi said without putting an investment figure to the venture.
"Our idea is to develop 100,000 applications developed for us. Simply put, our goal is to put internet access in the hands of every citizen of India. We would give them a phone with an internet access that works well. If you look at smartphones, they are not internet friendly and as such not a lot of people are using those phones to access the internet: Mostly for voice, then texting, and some amount of music and photo. Our idea is to make them use the internet," Modi said.
S. Mobility earlier worked on a gaming development centre where application developers came and started building for BlackBerry. Modi now wants them to create games for Spice's own devices, and also applications for healthcare, education and utilities going forward.
Apart from the software and retail, Modi has big plans for Spice Hotspot branded apps stores - creating cheap feature-rich smartphones.
Modi's partners are Taiwan-based MediaTek, a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications, and Shenzhen Tinno Mobile Technology Corp, which is working on mobile phones exclusively designed for the group's presence in India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
"In the market you have feature phones and you have smartphones; what we are manufacturing is a new category, smart feature phones, at price points that would be below Rs.5,000," he said. S. Mobility's two such phones, Samba and Carnival, made their debut during Diwali.
Tablets are Modi's another sweet spot.
"We have just launched our 7.2 inch tablet and are going to launch a 10.7 inch one soon."
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