Brands, apps go ‘native’ to sneak into your smartphone

When Micromax’s subsidiary Yu Televentures launches its much hyped Yu Yutopia phone some time soon, users will find mobile travel marketplace ixigo’s app ‘native integrated’ into it.

Native integration means using the same application programming interface (API) as the device so that the app experience is seamless — almost like an Operating System, in fact. And, users won’t need to download the app from app stores.

A big trend this year has been the way m-commerce players — and even consumer brands — have been doing deals with device makers to embed their apps into smartphones before they hit the market. E-commerce outfits Paytm and Jabong, for instance, have inked deals with manufacturers such as Micromax, Spice and Karbonn.

“But pre-embeds are already a dying trend. Native integration is the new thing. With this we are sitting one level deeper in the phone,” says Aloke Bajpai, CEO and co-founder, ixigo.com.

According to Bajpai, native integration is faster and smoother. This is because the app links into local applications of the smartphone such as contacts and maps and emails.

For instance, on the new Micromax device, if say, the PNR number of a train pops up on an email or SMS — the smartphone immediately uses the ixigo data and sends you alerts in much the same way that Google does it.

Micromax is a strategic investor in ixigo (which has also received funding from SAIF partners and MakeMyTrip), but Bajpai says the travel search engine is open to similar deals with other handset makers too.

It’s become imperative for m-commerce and e-commerce players to go for pre-embeds and native integration of their apps because customer acquisition is getting increasingly difficult.

For starters “discovery” of the app is difficult on super crowded app stores unless the brand advertises.

Even if users download apps, the “shelf life of an app is very low as users quickly uninstall it”, says Sanjit Chatterjee, CEO, Telecom Roaming Services and IT Security at Reve Group, a mobility products company.

That’s why well funded players such as Jabong, Paytm and ixigo see merit in doing deals with handset makers as hardcoded apps cannot be uninstalled. And Micromax, which has been grabbing mass market smartphone market share, is an obvious partner. For the OEMs it is an emerging revenue model with rates fixed per embed, per handset.

App makers or publishers who cannot afford these deals with manufacturers do the next best thing, going through dealers or distributors to get their apps pre-loaded into the phone.

As former Dentsu India chairman Sandeep Goyal, who runs Mogae Media, a mobile solutions firm that helps brands embed their apps into handsets (Star India’s Hotstar app is a case), points out: “Mobile is such a medium that you don’t need to advertise — you can be part of the phone’s user experience.”

While users will see utility in m-commerce apps, even FMCG brands could become part of a customer’s phone experience through innovative gaming apps or utility apps such as wake up calls.

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