Experience in measuring the market for developing mobile applications in Russia. Interview with Anatoly Larin

The mobile application development market is currently developing very rapidly. There is a feeling that we are witnessing the emergence of a new, previously unexplored industry. Already, the market has formed its own special format, and now you can select successful players, different approaches to work, and so on. We believe that a self-respecting developer is useful to know his surroundings, and therefore talked with Anatoly Larin, responsible for the development of the Touch Instinct business, as well as the author of the rating of mobile application developers ( More ).

Hi Anatoly! Let's get to the point: what is the mobile development market all about? Who are the main players?

The market as a market is still growing. :) I define it for myself as
a cross between a web studio market and a digital agency market. The main players, in my opinion, are id-east, Unreal mojo, Polonium Arts, RedMadRobot. Although it is still difficult to judge, many are too lazy to update the portfolio. If you take the CIS, then you definitely need to add Stanfy.

How many mobile application development companies are there in Russia?
')
In our rating for 2011 there were about 40. In the rating of App4All
outsourcing companies 200. I think nominally 200 of them. Those who focus on mobile development and made at least 2 applications to order, no more than 50.

Portrait of a Russian developer of mobile applications? Are they legal entities or private entrepreneurs?

Legal entities. I have not even come across private entrepreneurs,
Yes, and freelance for mobile platforms - a rare phenomenon. I would share mobile companies like this:
- custom mobile developers for business;
- mobile digital production;
- companies engaged in the development of software in general;
- Web-studios, gradually making mobile projects.
Many are trying to do something in the mobile market, someone closer to advertising, someone to the business.

Does your company fit into this portrait? Tell us about yourself. Who are your customers?

We now have 34 employees. Most of them are busy with company projects.
i-Free, Stream.ru and secret foreign customer. The rest do
smaller projects, for example, WebEffector, RelaxFM for Gazprom-Media. AT
companies have their own designers, a full testing department,
interface designer, PR and sales manager.

In our work, we adhere to two principles. The first - quality
products. We are anxious about our design, convenience and stability.
works The second is the perfect service. We strive to make customers
it is easy and pleasant to work with us. We constantly train
account managers, invent customer service standards.

Tell me about your rating. Why did you do it?

When only entered the market in 2011, it seemed that the niche ranking
free, they decided to take. On the web market, the ratings feel very good.
not bad. Besides this, it was interesting to understand where we are
relative to other market participants, come up with a coordinate system for
evaluation of their work.

Niche, by the way, is still free. :) In my opinion, the rating is better
nobody did ours.

How did you measure the rating? What did you find out? Are there any errors?

At first, they wanted to use the tagline technique: typical cost
project turnover for the year and mutual voting. Mobile studios with
suspicion of the idea of ​​the rating, and the data could not be collected.

Therefore, we collected public data, who did what applications for 2011
year, manually screened non-order and cloned applications. For
the remaining applications collected metrics from application stores: which
places occupied in the tops, the number and quality of user reviews.
According to these metrics and calculated rating.

It was possible to figure out who is on the market, who was as productive as 11
year, and even measure the average "quality" of work.

It is clear that any ratings are subjective. Therefore, the most interesting
will be in March 2013 when we release the second version of the rating and
changes in company positions will be visible.

I would single out two main mistakes:
- imperfection of the technique, which we will fix. All will be removed
entertainment and gaming (not advertising, but just gaming) applications,
companies from the CIS, added business indicators;
- insufficient promotion of results. At the end of work on
rated suddenly appeared a lot of work, and did not have time as it should
advertise, post on Habr here only a couple of weeks ago wrote.
Next year we will allocate a budget and time for this.

How did they react to the rating as a whole? Was it useful?

Overall skeptical. But I know for sure that the leaders of the rating
got him a couple of orders. And lately a lot has come
requests from new companies to add to the rating.

I think in 2013 colleagues on the market will be more supportive. :)

Your wishes to Russian developers of mobile applications.

Pay more attention to application design, read iOS HIG and
Android design. Now for many works from the Russian AppStore / Google
Play scary to look. Think over the effect for the customer. I often
discourage companies from doing mobile apps if I believe that
invested forces and funds will not bring tangible results.

And may the Force be with us!

Thank! We hope that our readers will have something to say about this in the comments. Ask your questions, we are happy to address them to Anatolia.

AppProfessionals.ru is a tool for choosing a reliable partner for developing applications.

The service allows customers looking for a mobile application developer to choose a partner based on the required competencies, geographical location, portfolio and average cost of work. Developers, accordingly, will be able to find customers here. Sign up!