Iran’s smartphone applications market brings in huge profits for their developers and stores, filling the void left by Google and Apple in the Iranian cell-phone market.
Both Google and Apple lost many potential customers when they restricted the Iranian users’ access to their online app stores, due to western-led sanctions imposed on the country. The decision brought the curtain down on many of the online stores which smartphone users would use normally.
Iranian users, dealing with this gap in the market began to think creatively about the potential for an indigenous market. Iranian programmers then decided to take action and design their own cell phone applications.
Creative Iranian programmers identified a huge domestic market and were quick to design alternative websites like: Cafebazaar, Cando, Mycat, and play-store.ir. They also designed and supplied applications for the iPhone and IOS devices. As a result, Iranian users, who denied access to the official stores created a completely new occupation overnight, developing thousands of localized variants of well known apps.
The latest stats suggest that aside from iPhones, there are about four million Android mobile phones in the country. A considerable number of them are continually downloading applications from Internet app stores and that’s why 10 percent of the bandwidth goes to downloading applications, Iran Front Page reported.
For instance, the Bazaar app store by itself takes up two percent of bandwidth. Another noticeable thing is the large turnover of the mobile phone market which is said to be as much as $2 billion. The remaining $2 billion changes hands on communications equipment and software.
On the retraction of certain US sanctions pertaining to the technology sector, both Apple and Android were allowed to open their online stores to Iranian consumers. However, the problem remains that Iranians are still barred from paying for applications from these stores. This hasn’t bothered the local app developers though; with the Cafebazaar app recently valued at $8 million, the future looks bright for the indigenous developers.
