AFTER business-process outsourcing and nursing, app development is the “next big industry” to watch out for in the Philippines.
The country is confident it can best deliver app development to the world in the near future, given the availability of a vast pool of information-technology (IT) talents here.
But “there are still a lot of things to be done” to achieve the country’s full potential in this field, said Prof. Paris de L’Etraz, founder of Global Mobile Challenge and managing director of VentureLab at IE Business School Madrid.
In an interview, he told the BusinessMirror the global app-development industry is now growing—valued at $58 billion in terms of revenue—mainly due to high mobile- technology penetration.
With around 4.6 billion phones worldwide to date, he said the mobile industry has more users than the Internet, particularly in most developing markets where many people are buying and using smartphones, instead of expensive computers they can’t afford.
“Web sites were the leaders in the past, yet over time, the mobile phone will be much more powerful in usage, and the way to communicate from it is primarily through apps,” L’Etraz said, adding over 40 million apps are downloaded every day.
For the “world’s text capital,” for instance, he said even poor Filipinos, especially those in the provinces who only earn about P5,000 a month, spend one-third of their salary to load their mobile phones, either to communicate or download an app.
“So the opportunity is enormous in developing markets,” he said. “Mobile technology is exploding, and it is only getting started. Now is a perfect time to get in.” While mobile-app development has grown to a multibillion-dollar industry at present, L’Etraz said the Philippines “has a limited footprint” in this segment compared to its neighbors in Southeast Asia, like Vietnam, where a lot of this is happening.
“It has to come here. This nation may be a leader in the world in nursing and call centers, but it also has what it takes to become a leader in the world in IT development,” the professor said, referring to the country’s large English-speaking population and competitive labor cost.
He reiterated, though, the need to enhance more of the local talents’ competency to catch up with their counterparts abroad.
“They’re behind many other countries,” he conceded. “I think the challenge is education. You have to train more people to become app developers and programmers.”
With the new leadership in place, L’Etraz is confident President Duterte’s agenda, including those aimed at elevating literacy and entrepreneurship in the country, will give a boost to address this concern.
“I think, we’re in a very good time for the government is dedicated to helping the base of the pyramid in terms of education and technology. That’s where we need to go increasingly,” he said.
While Filipino app makers are strongly inclined to agriculture, social and trade mobile solutions, he encouraged them to think global by also developing apps for education and health since they are now highly in-demand in the world market, together with religion-based ones.
“You have 10 million Filipinos living outside of the Philippines. So there’s a lot of potential there to do things internationally,” L’Etraz said.