Samsung Starts to Collaborate with Local Developer

Previously, Nokia has been actively trying to grab local developers with their roadshow programs in several cities in Indonesia. Now, it's Samsung's time to try and grab developers to develop apps in Samsung's own ecosystem. Samsung realizes that Android lineups and Bada (that has just been launched) have only limited number of local apps embedded inside.

Besides Android Market, Samsung also has Samsung Apps since the past two years. According to Head of Business Development, HHP Business, Samsung Electronics Indonesia, Alven Desnecmen as quoted from Kompas, since established two years ago, Samsung Apps already has 50K apps. However, there are only around 50 local developers involved.

In Indonesian smartphone market, Samsung is on the second position after BlackBerry. According to Samsung calculation, they intactly (not only smartphone) dominated some cities outside Jakarta—even defeats Nokia—such as Bandung and Makasar. With this market potentials, developers surely have strong chance to apply their creativity on Samsung Apps, especially for “paid apps” market after somehow it is hard to get through paid-apps market on Google's official Android Market.

Meanwhile, 90% of apps on Samsung Apps are free products but it is possible to increase the “paid apps” if people like it. It seems that Samsung is still trying to find the right formula to grab users, especially for the commitment and profit share between Samsung and developers.

Personally, I do not use Samsung mobile phones but I assume that actual apps on Samsung Apps should be now available on pre-loaded system for every Samsung smartphones sold in Indonesia. In fact, there are quite many popular apps (or its affiliation) there, such as detikcom, kaskus, or 21cineplex. However, the most local apps are develop by Samsung (SEIN) themselves. There are some apps offered for IDR 16,500 ($1.99).

According to the information I received, there are some developers approached by Samsung for making their apps available as pre-loaded apps. Surely, Samsung’s commitment and consideration on the importance of local application availability can be good for the mobile apps development, especially on Android and Bada platform in Indonesia.