The Golden (Advertising) Opportunity: Asia - Part 1

Advertisers typically think first about Western markets when planning their next campaign but it?s always worthwhile to take a step back and consider the next areas of opportunity. This is why we?re going to shift our focus to the Golden Opportunity that is Southeast Asia (SEA), China and India. We?re excited about these regions for advertisers, and here?s why:

Regions on the Rise

It?s widely known that emerging markets are the main driver of global smartphone and mobile tech growth. According a recent report from the market research agency GFK Asia, intensifying demand drove smartphone sales across the region to surge 61% last year, showing the adoption of smartphones continuing to grow in SEA, China and India at breakneck speed.Soaring smartphone ownership and usage is presenting a huge mobile opportunity in these regions, and as this growth picks up momentum, mobile will play an increasingly critical role in shaping the future of commerce in SEA, China and India where smartphone owners are relatively receptive to mobile advertising. With such a highly developed smartphone market, these markets prove to be an ideal test-market for developers to launch new games and distribute successful models to win the hearts of their target audience.Here?s a breakdown of iOS/Android mobile market share on the Chartboost platform during May 2014:

38% Growth on iOSOverall iOS growth (game sessions in the last six months) on the Chartboost platform has been led by China, India, Vietnam and the Philippines.

62% Growth on AndroidAndroid devices are the most accessible smartphones, so we expect Android growth to continue to outpace iOS. Keep an eye on Android in India and Indonesia where their population figures (1.237M and 256.9M, respectively) and % of smartphone adoption (3.4% and 18.4%) compared to % of mobile adoption (62.5% and 115.4%) suggest that these markets have, and are, catching on fire. (Source http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a).

High MonetizationSome developers underestimate the monetizing power of Southeast Asia but together, with the growth of game sessions, we?re seeing tremendous growth on money spent on games in this part of the world. Top grossing games are getting between $20 and $45 ARPPUs in countries like Thailand and Singapore. According to David NG, CEO of Gumi Asia, SEA is a ?region of whales? for their game Brave Frontier. Furthermore, the App stores are adding local payment methods and carrier billing which leads us to believe that revenue can only increase from here.Individually these countries represent a huge opportunity to acquire new users, so when you pool them together, they represent a massive audience that no advertiser should overlook. Indonesia, alone, has been the fastest growing market on Android in the last six months (over 150% game session growth on Chartboost, Dec 13 - May 14). It?s just a matter of time before these countries will surpass the size of Europe. So now that we?ve convinced you to take a serious look at SEA, China and India to increase your advertising budgets, what do you do when you get there? Stay tuned for Part 2 of ?The Golden Opportunity? later this week where we?ll walk you through some Creative Best Practices specific to these regions.Click here to view Part 2 of this series.