India represents the single largest geographical concentration of developers for Nokia

Forum Nokia has been active for the last ten years. What has been the
response of the Indian developer market?

Forum Nokia has been in existence for the last ten years with the aim of
providing consumers and developers with a platform that not only fosters the
creation of appealing applications and services but also delivers rich new
experiences for end-users, provides additional revenue flows for operators and
exciting business opportunities for developers, Web designers, and Nokia
business units.

While globally Forum Nokia has 3.8 mn registered users, India today has over
140,000 Indian developers already registered with the community, representing
the single largest geographical concentration of developers for the platform,
growing at 48% y-o-y.

We work very closely with the Indian developers, offering world-class support
in terms of education and training; generating awareness among relevant target
audiences etc.

What are the factors propelling the growth of the VAS in India?

We have been seeing the Mobile Vas industry grow in leaps and bounds over
the past few years. According to a recent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC),
the mobile VAS (MVAS) market has grown to contribute almost 10% of the
operator's revenue and is estimated to account for nearly 18% by 2010.
Additionally, it reports that this industry will grow to be $2 bn in 2008 while
the worldwide spending on MVAS, including mobile music, mobile payment and
mobile advertising increasing to $55.6 bn by 2011.

The journey so far indicates that entertainment-led content is the king when
it comes to the Indian mobile users. While mobile music will continue to be the
major revenue generator, we will also see a burgeoning demand for entertainment
such as games, mobile TV and video services as well as location based service.
User generated content, social networking, financial services, and rural VAS
services hold huge potential.

What are the issues and challenges being faced by the Indian developer
community?

The Indian developer community is at par with any other country's developer
community with respect to their skill sets and technical knowledge. One of the
key challenges that developers face across the globe is the speed at which this
industry is growing and hence the constant need to innovate to keep pace with
demands being made not only from the evolving consumer but also from a
technology perspective.

Gagandeep K

gagandeepk@cybermedia.co.in