The Global Mobile App Summit & Awards (GMASA) is being hosted in Bangkok this year, at the Sheraton Grande Sukhumvit on 22 January.
The one-day event promises to be a gathering of the best and brightest in mobile app technology as professionals and executives from across the industry meet to share developments, news and learning.
2014 was the inaugural year of the GMASA and was held in Chennai, India – widely considered the subcontinent’s IT capital.
Thailand was the inevitable choice for this year’s outing, explains CR Venkatesh, organiser of GMASA and CEO of Dot Com Infoway, thanks to the Kingdom’s exponential growth in the mobile games market as well leading Southeast Asia for smartphones.
According to Deal Street Asia, mobile phone penetration in Thailand was at 180 percent at the start of 2015, thanks to many citizens owning multiple devices. Gaming, online shopping, watching videos and listening to music on smartphones are well ingrained activitiesinto the Thai zeitgeist.
“The focus this year is on gaming which should attract many of Thailand’s 60,000 app developers and the growing numbers abroad,” said Venkatesh.
“Thailand is, after all, the largest market for games in Southeast Asia with a 21 percent share and should hold the leader position until 2017. The revenue through games in Thailand was about US$93.5 million in 2014. Whereas it went to US$150 million in 2015 and will exceed US$490 million in 2017. About 60 percent of these revenues will come from mobile,” he added.
Aside from gaming, mobile app trends in Thailand this year are likely to focus on social networking, mobile payments and location-based services, reports The Nation.
Do you think Thailand is ready to lead the way in the mobile gaming revolution?
Featured image is by Scalino and used under a Creative Commons licence
