MUMBAI: How often has a consumer turned down the idea of purchasing an application citing the high-cost to its purchase value? For a market that has been notorious for its lack-of-desire to pay huge amounts for these apps, India does offer a balance through its 'quantity'.

To bank on the very factor, Kratos launched Kuberplay – an sdk-based application that potentially allows the consumer to purchase an application without spending the asking value. India has the second largest Android developer community with almost 300,000 app developers and historically speaking, over 70 per cent of these apps close shop due to the inability to monetise.

Music streaming services and apps like Gaana, Saavn, Guvera and Hungama follow different models to generate revenues; however, these apps face common obstacles resulting into slower financial growth despite the abundant user-base. Almost half of Guvera’s global user-base belongs to India, and although the service continues to grow on the user scale, the Australia-based company depends on brand integrations and several other factors for influx of money.

The co-founder of Kuberplay, Naveen Bhandari, explained, “For the sake of an example, let’s say, a consumer wants to download Saavn Pro. The consumer can follow the regular approach and buy it from the Play Store, however, if the cost discourages the consumer from purchasing Pro, Kuberplay can come to his/her rescue.”

How Kuberplay Works

The developer integrates Kuberplay to his app, and while customers are using the app, it will display a list of app download offers with a fixed gratification against each offer. For e.g.: If a customer is playing the free version of a game, or listening to the free song, then on downloading and installing an app from the Kuberplay’s offer wall, the customer will get virtual coins or give user access to the paid version of the game or one more premium song.

To explain how it would work in the genre of music, Bhandari further elaborated, “Buying any music app (or any other app that offers its services to Kuberplay) would involve no expenditure of money whatsoever. The consumer would download any desirable music app, and Kuberplay would further recommend or ask the consumer to download other ‘related’ apps. So, the purchase of Saavn Pro, for example, would lead to recommendations of an audio book or an instrument tutorial app and so on.”

Don’t pay and buy more

The number of recommendations would vary on the basis of the value of the first app selected/bought. Also, the extent and the nature of the services would vary from an app to another. Realistically, related apps should pop-up and Kuberplay’s algorithm would be set to ensure exactly the same. The algorithms would also ensure that the competitor’s app does not pop up as a recommendation. Bhandari also added that venturing into sdk-based services had to be the next logical step, a conclusion the team arrived after a month of brainstorming.

It wouldn’t be unsafe to claim that the smaller players (music or otherwise) will be the biggest beneficiaries from the deal. The established music apps and services have evolved enough and created a reputable impression in the market, gradually adapting to the consumers’ need through the provisions of several additional services at an attempt to retain the existing user-base. For the smaller players or the late arrivals, Kuberplay provides an ideal platform without the fear of incurring huge losses early and further achieving maximum outreach through the ‘recommendations’ factor.

Kuberplay will help app developers monetize their app, especially the customers who access only the free component of the app, desire the complete app but are unable to buy the app because they are expensive. The global purchase of in-app purchase is only 2%; through Kuberplay this can increase up to 10% helping them towards financially viable business models. By integrating Kuberplay into their app the revenue of an App Developer in consumer premium space can increase by 25 to 30%.

Kuberplay does not create major disruption or change the nature or future of streaming services and music apps in India. But the launch of the app surely offers these players an additional element to reduce the losses (the bigger picture) and gain more ‘relevant interested’ consumers to the mix. The app will focus on covering 400-500 apps in the next three months, and on the basis of priority, the genre of music falls on the third position for Kuberplay, right behind gaming and video.