Affle to launch two new messaging applications

Affle, a mobile media company headquartered in Singapore, plans to launch two new applications to fuel its growth in India after the success of its App SMS 2.0. The two new applications, SMS Live and Pinch, are to be launched this quarter.
Talking about the applications, Anuj Kumar, executive director, South Asia, Affle, explains, “We are planning to launch two applications this quarter which we are very excited about.”
He added, “While the SMS Live application will create a paradigm shift in terms of how Messaging and social networking are used on mobiles, the other application, Pinch, aims at giving a value added experience to the users. Pinch will give them cost benefits and also create a lot of location based and other social gaming based services around it.”
Although these applications will be launched globally, Affle intends to focus especially on marketing to get more users in India.
The company is also evaluating the idea of building an R&D centre in India. The company plans to invest over $10 million globally for R&D with key focus on India, China and Indonesia, and will then look at Australia and other western European markets. Currently, its R&D and product development is headquartered in Singapore. It plans to centralise its global technology operations in India and hopes to be able to work on the same by the end of this year.
Affle had earlier set up office in Bangalore and Mumbai with an aim to service customers better. In India, they intend to invest in technologies which are specific to the country. Kumar shares that India contributes more than 50 per cent of the company’s total revenue, making it significant for their current positioning as well as growth.
The company is already present in markets such as Indonesia, Singapore, India, Thailand and Malaysia, and recently forayed into China and Australia as well. Kumar adds, “China and Australia are high potential markets. While China is huge in terms of scale and number of users, Australia is far less in numbers but has very high value users, given the amount of ARPU they contribute.”