Makers of UCBrowser launch InDev program worth $20 million for independent, small developers in India

At the ongoing Reliance Games Pocket Connects 2016, a platform for the gaming community to come together, 9Apps that is a part of UCWeb, has announced the all-new In Dev platform. The InDev program is worth $20 million and aims to help local independent and startup developers in India. 9Apps is a popular Android marketplace with over 160 million monthly active users.

We met Robert Bu, General Manager, UCWeb India, for a quick chat and he tells us about the new program and challenges faced by independent developers. Bu tells us that the new program has been specially launched at the PGConnects to reach out to potential local developers.

“There are various challenges faced by local developers such as acquiring new users and monetisation. The InDev program will help expand their user base, help with publishing, monetising and also other aspects like promoting and marketing their app. It will help them with complete brand exposure. They can focus on the product and we will do the rest,” Bu explained.

The program is aimed at helping more than 100 independent and small startup developers over the next two years. Qualified developers won’t have to spend any money and the company will share 100 percent of the revenue. The company has also planned Diamond Awards for qualified game and apps with resources worth $50000.

According to a recent app industry analysis by 9Apps, on average an Indian user installs no more than 32 apps (that is lower than the world average) and only 26 percent users have Hindi language apps. Most of these users continue to download via 2G. He highlights poor connectivity and limited payment options a reason why the revenue generated is lower than markets like the US or China. He further went on to explain how adding Indian flavour to apps will also help attract users.

In fact, the popular UCBrowser was launched to address some of these issues, especially poor connectivity. The cloud based technology allowed UCBrowser to compress data by 60 – 80 percent. Moreover, UCBrowser offers a lot of local content. For instance, there are  localised features like Music, News and Cricket within the browser.

“Localisation plays an important role. A lot of Internet users from tier 2 and tier 3 are coming on mobile phones and don’t know where to find content. UCBrowser helps them find and consume the content within the browser. In fact, if you remember, UCBrower makers had also helped Flipkart build its mobile site.

Nevertheless, he believes that the gaming market is growing rapidly and in the next 2-3 years, it will be as good as other mature gaming industries.