In brief
Google Play outlined six ways to help developers reach international markets in 2018: improve app quality, reduce download size, expand payment options, strengthen security, offer pre-registration and support independent developer events.
Mobile gaming had become mainstream at G-Star 2018. With a focus on Asian markets, Google Play outlined several practical initiatives to help developers seize emerging business opportunities. On mobile security, Purnima Kochikar, Google Play’s Director of Global Apps and Games Business Development, announced that more than 700,000 apps that violated Google Play policies had been removed over the past year, 70% more than in 2016.
Taiwan, Japan and South Korea are key markets for Google Play worldwide
Purnima Kochikar, Google Play’s Director of Global Apps and Games Business Development, said there were more than 2 billion active Android devices worldwide, with users downloading more than 250 million apps daily from Google Play stores across 215 countries. Three of Google Play’s five largest markets worldwide were in Asia: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, underscoring their strategic importance.
The scale of emerging markets cannot be overlooked
According to the latest figures published by GSMA, Asia had more than 1.9 billion internet users, accounting for over half of the global total, while the number of unique mobile subscriptions reached 2.7 billion. The latest figures published by Statista also showed that, in 2017 alone, apps in Asia recorded a total of 187 billion downloads, the highest of any region worldwide. Both sets of figures demonstrate the considerable activity in Asia’s emerging markets.
Another statistic illustrates how quickly emerging markets were growing. In 2017, the number of Android users who had downloaded at least one game more than doubled, with nearly 40% of these users coming from Southeast Asia and emerging markets. The number of developers from emerging markets also tripled over the preceding two years, reflecting increasingly active international markets.
In an interview, Purnima Kochikar explained that the number of Android game developers in emerging markets had tripled over the preceding two years primarily because of demand from younger generations and the rise of emerging markets. People born after 1995 and after 2000, for example, had been exposed to mobile phones from an early age and were therefore more receptive to mobile content. In emerging markets, most of the productivity tools users relied on were mobile products, which also contributed to their relatively active use of mobile apps.
To help developers capture opportunities in these growing markets, Google Play introduced the following initiatives, covering app quality, a smarter distribution platform and updates to security policies:
1. App quality: Google Play found that many apps with frequent crashes received 52% more one-star reviews than apps that crashed less often. In response, Google Play further integrated pre-launch reports with Android Vitals to help developers monitor their apps’ technical performance and address issues identified in Vitals reports.
2. Smarter distribution platform: Google Play data showed that average app size had tripled over the preceding four years, reducing download conversion rates and increasing uninstall rates. Google therefore introduced a new publishing format, Android App Bundle, which reduced app size by an average of 35% compared with standard APKs.
3. Mobile payments: Google Play also addressed payment challenges through mobile payments. At the time, Google enabled users to pay by credit card, direct carrier billing, PayPal or gift card through a network spanning more than 150 countries, 167 direct carrier billing (DCB) partners and over 800,000 retail locations.
4. Platform security policies: To build trust, Google Play Protect scanned and analysed more than 50 billion apps on Google Play every day. Users were nine times less likely to download unsafe apps and games from Google Play than from other sources for their devices. Purnima Kochikar revealed that Google Play removed more than 700,000 apps that violated its policies in 2017 alone, 70% more than in 2016. Of the apps that violated Google Play’s content policies, 99% were removed before users installed them.
5. Pre-registration: In terms of stability, Google Play offered a pre-registration feature that had already attracted more than 250 million users. The feature was available through the Google Play Console to all app and game developers.
6. Independent developer gatherings: The Google Play Indie Games Festival was first held in South Korea in 2016. The previous year, Indie Games Festival events were also held in more locations, including Mountain View in the United States and London in the United Kingdom. Workshops for independent game developers were also held in Southeast Asia, giving more developers in emerging markets access to relevant resources. The Shanghai Indie Games Festival, held during that year’s ChinaJoy, enabled developers to exchange ideas and interact with players to understand market demand.
Regarding the Asia-Pacific Indie Showcase, Purnima Kochikar announced that the homepage of the South Korean Google Play store would feature all independent games participating in the event during G-Star 2018. Google Play’s Best of 2018 list would also be unveiled on 3 December, with user voting for the 2018 Most Popular Game and 2018 Most Popular App awards continuing until 26 November.
That year’s Asia-Pacific PlayTime developer conferences would also take place in four cities: Taipei, Singapore, Seoul and Tokyo. Google Play launched the Indie Games Accelerator in India, Southeast Asia and Pakistan that year, providing a dedicated mentoring programme for promising game developers. The Google Play Indie Games Festival also expanded that year to more locations, including London, Seoul, Brazil and Tokyo, with plans to extend the programme to emerging markets worldwide in 2019.
Original article URL: https://goo.gl/1hk62k