The mobile industry is fighting the wrong war in emerging markets

[Commentary] Mobile is counting on the developing world (and its estimated 5 billion mobile subscriptions) in a big way. As Mozilla demonstrates a $25 smartphone, undercutting on price has long been the industry’s strategy to wooing emerging market consumers. However, content also matters significantly.

On smartphones, content manifests in apps, meaning mobile providers and companies must ask: Is the battle for cheaper smartphones a worthwhile fight, or does the real war lie in making their content accessible? There are considerable obstacles to actively reaching consumers in emerging markets. More than a third of these consumers, for example, find content too expensive to access, while 32% are not aware of any kind of incentives or promotions to drive purchases.

The Trojan horse in the room is that a majority of app stores require access to credit payment methods, while more than one in five (21%) emerging market consumers do not have access to credit or bank facilities. In addition, a majority of potential smartphone users in emerging markets do not have access to banking or credit card accounts, and as such cannot use the Apple App Store or Google Play, even if they wanted to.

Yet another obstruction is translation. One in six (18%) emerging market consumers cannot view content from app stores on their current devices, one in four (24%) cannot find the content they are looking for and one in five (20%) find that content is not in their local language. Notably, each of these obstacles are completely avoidable, and by focusing on remedying them, companies could easily pull ahead of the pack in reaching their target customers.

With a nod toward the sheer importance of content -- especially that which is globally branded -- 60% of consumers state that when purchasing it, they want a format that suits their device, rendering mobile manufacturers somewhat irrelevant in this regard. No doubt: app stores are where brands active on mobile should place their focus. As devices diversify, content is a constant denominator in the eyes of emerging nations, and so king.

[Veremis is o-founder, CEO and chairman of Upstream]