Playing for Qeep in Emerging Markets
Blue Lion Mobile, the company behind the award-winning social gaming application Qeep, is betting big on the growth of emerging markets.
Two years ago, they entered Nokia’s “Create for Millions” contest, and Qeep was in the winners’ circle. Since that time, they have continued to build out the features and functionality of their Java-based app, which works especially well on phones in the Nokia Asha range.*
Today, Qeep has more than 24 million users worldwide and adds 20,000 new users every day while serving 1.7 billion mobile page views every month to 200 countries. Growth in Latin America has been especially strong, where monthly user growth is approximately 14%, with 160% user growth during the past 12 months in the region.
Watch this video from Nokia Developer to see how Qeep is building on their prior success:
[rpsb_youtube]http://youtu.be/6xUEXAy1qOY[/rpsb_youtube]
The popularity of Qeep stems in part from the fact that it is not just a single game. Users worldwide can play a variety of games, chat, send pictures, make friends and more all using the Qeep app on their phone.
Building on the Asha platform
“Offering a rich user experience is very important to a social application like Qeep,” says Christian Schulte, managing director at Blue Lion Mobile. “Within the Asha development framework, it was very easy for us to access a variety of APIs for gesture navigation, camera APIs and Map APIs. From a developer perspective, it gives you a flexibility you normally only find in a smartphone environment.”
“The Asha platform gives us almost the [same] flexibility you would normally only find in a smartphone environment,” says Schulte. As they make ongoing improvements to Qeep, they are able to make modifications within a week or two specific to the needs of the Asha range.
What’s next for Blue Lion Mobile and Qeep?
In late October, Blue Lion Mobile announced the addition of “People Nearby” to Qeep, a localized search function so that people using the app can see who else is online in their area. In this way, you could actually meet your virtual friend from Qeep in the real world.
Additionally, the company is working with Nokia to continue its growth in emerging markets around the world.
“From a developer’s perspective, the Nokia Asha device series and especially the Asha 501, is extremely interesting because it gives, at a very low price point, a smartphone-like user experience to a lot of users out there; and for us, it’s the right platform to connect to the next billion,” Schulte said.
Qeep is free to download from the Nokia Store.
*App availability will vary by device and country.