Brazilian market gets ready for application software on-line store invasion
Valor Econômico
Internet has been becoming a gigantic shopping for the manufacturers of cellular telephones and operational systems. With its personalized software stores, the sector started seeing in the virtual space another way of seducing the user, to either hold a customer or to draw new users to a specific device, operator or operational system.
Such competition promises to be warmed up in Brazil within the next months. Until the end of the year, Canadian Research in Motion (RIM) and Korean LG intend to open the doors of their application stores in the country. Microsoft also promises to present, in the second half of the year, the "Windows Marketplace for Mobile", as announced in February by Steve Ballmer, head-executive of the company.
Other openings are already scheduled. Nokia should open the Portuguese version of its Ovi Store in the beginning of 2010. Also next year will arrive the Brazilian versions of the Sony Ericsson Play Now Arena, and the Palm Store, manufacturer of the Palm mobile devices.
Newton Pontes, business development officer of Nokia, affirms the applications store have become a well-succeeded model because they offer advantages for the whole chain - from manufacturers to consumers.. They are a meeting point for the user to find the applications of his interest and for the developer to display its products. Creating a community, comments Pontes, the manufacturer stimulates the development of applications for its platform. The income from the sale of a specific program is shared between Nokia and the developer of the product.
LG has recently started betting in the applications stores, with the opening of sites - still under tests - in Australia and Singapore. For the company, the greatest benefit in opening a local store is its capacity to attract the interests of the consumers of that country. "The idea is to work with the community of local developers because it is more familiar with the culture of that market", says Marcus Daniel, officer of the cell phone area of LG in Brazil.