Developing Mobile Applications: What You Need to Know for Emerging Markets

Life without the Internet... Hard to imagine, isn't it? But unfortunately, it's a bitter truth in the emerging economies of Asia, South America and Africa. This situation has seen a positive change in recent years, with a massive increase in the popularity of smartphones, which has led to a wave of new Internet users.

You may be wondering what mobile apps have to do with emerging markets. The truth is that many people in these markets do not have access to a computer. Instead, they rely on their phones for everything from checking the news to managing their finances. Mobile app developers know that it's important for their apps to work equally well on lower-spec phones.

These markets offer great opportunities for technology providers and top app development companies. However, they present a unique set of challenges that mobile app development companies must face.

These markets offer great opportunities for technology providers and top app development companies. However, they present a unique set of challenges that mobile app development companies must face.

Before we proceed, you may be wondering what this "next billion" is. This is a term coined by Google to refer to these new age internet users. For this "next billion", the internet refers to the applications and services that are accessed primarily on mobile devices. It is therefore essential to focus on designing native, web-based mobile applications.

Let's take a look at the aspects you should keep in mind when developing mobile applications for these emerging markets.

FMake them Offlines-Friendly

It is essential to develop mobile applications that are not affected by the quality of the Internet.

In addition, the application must also resume where the user leaves the window. There are many ways to achieve this, but Firebase is one of the best options available. Even though it is a real-time database, it has first-rate offline capabilities that can be attributed to essential features such as:

• Disk persistence: Disk persistence in Firebase allows the application to write and store data locally on the device, thus maintaining its state even offline.
• Persistence behavior: When persistence behavior is enabled in Firebase, online data will be synchronized, allowing you to access data on the application even offline. In addition, if you are using Firebase's real-time database, it will record any operations you have performed offline. Once connected to the Internet, this record is transmitted online to the Firebase Realtime Database server.
• Offline data query: Firebase Realtime Database also stores data for offline queries. In this case, the data is loaded from the local cache. Then, when the Internet is available, the data is reloaded immediately.

Providing offline capabilities also requires time and effort to implement and maintain.

Test Devices

There is a need to test applications on native devices when they are developed for emerging markets. The key here is to understand the target audience and then test the application by selecting the right set of mobile devices.

Keep the design basic

When developing applications for emerging markets, it is essential to keep the design basic. You can do this by focusing on bold fonts, large images and white space, which improves the user experience. This also gives the app's interface a de-cluttered look.

Focus on performance

You need to consider the performance of the app when developing apps for low-cost smartphones. In this case, you can use a globally distributed content delivery network (CDN), which allows for faster transfers. You can also opt for other technical approaches such as higher media compression, a lazy content loading approach and mobile app optimization for small file sizes.

Developing Mobile Applications with Mutual Mobile

Creating apps for emerging markets presents unique challenges for development companies. Once you know what these challenges are, they are not difficult to solve. To recap, always remember to:

• Choose appropriate target devices based on user research.
• Use real devices, not simulators, every day and configure them to mimic a real usage scenario.
• Work closely with designers to iterate on different animation and transition options.
• Deliver a compelling offline experience using technologies like Firebase.
• Choose the right payment platform, if necessary, for your target audience.