New job for the tech savvy

Updated on: Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Explosion of smartphones and expanding base of mobile users in the country has spawned a new job opportunity for young developers — mobile application development.

Demand for India-specific apps is on the rise with the growing number of mobile players in the field. In a bid to sustain loyalty, reduce churn and increase profit margins, mobile companies are fighting out to come out with innovative apps for their consumers.

And to help them in this bid, these folks are now tapping college campuses. The availability of enormous pool of intelligent and smart minds at colleges has pushed most telecom companies to colleges to tap talent at source.

Top players including Nokia, Samsung and Research in Motion are now enrolling students from colleges to come out with new apps for their smartphones.

Recently, Nokia signed up with Bharth University to train students in mobile technology, incorporated into the curriculum in their final year of study.

On successful completion of the, students will be entitled to become a Nokia Developer Launchpad Member, giving them access to latest technologies employed at Nokia.

“This is an exciting program as we get updates on cutting-edge technologies in advance and access to the regional and global trainings,” says M. Akash, a third year engineering student of the college.

Mobile app market, broadly classified as enterprise mobility market was worth about `346 crore in FY 2008-09 in India. And this, estimates research firm Frost & Sullivan, will touch Rs1,880 crore by FY 2015-16.

“India has one of the largest pools of mobile app developers in the world. At Nokia India, we believe that India is poised to become an app superpower in the coming years,” says Mr. Jasmeet Gandhi, Head — Services Marketing, Nokia India.

“We envisage a huge requirement for qualified professionals in the field of Mobile technology over the next 4-5 years,” he adds justifying the company’s strategy to associate with various colleges to increase talent pool.

Research in Motion (RIM), makers of Blackberry, too shares a similar view on the opportunity in mobile application development. “BlackBerry App World currently has 26,000-odd registered developers from India, against 5,000 two years ago, with the applications numbering over 40,000,” said RIM India head of alliance and developer relations Annie Mathew at a recent interview.

The company has envisaged on a project to train engineering students to help them develop applications. “We have commenced pilot project in Tamil Nadu for applications created by youths for youths. We are keen to take this project across the country,” she added.

Samsung, on its part, had taken an early lead in this initiative and announced its tie-up with 800-odd app developers in the country as early as April 2011.

In a country where mobile penetration far exceeds broadband, companies have realised that smartphones are a better way to do business for small companies and this has led to the clamour for more mobile apps.

Factors such as 3G launch, trend towards personalization, more models and a thriving developer eco-system to create value-added applications are the key drivers, opines Mr Asim Warsi, VP-marketing of Samsung India.

With more than 700 million mobile phone subscribers, and the pace showing no signs of plateauing, India is expectedly being touted as a mobile hotspot globally and is currently the third fastest growing smartphone market in the world.

New job for the tech savvy

More Education news