The Chinese smartphone maker Gionee has done an incredible job making a name for itself across India. The company’s relationship with India has been repeatedly encouraged through its efforts of expansion and production, along with unique offers and deals. For example, last year, the company made headlines when they announced plans to make all phones from India, locally, striving to double market share and revenue back in the financial year of 2017.
On top of this Gionee has also announced plans to extend its wildly successful “Smile Squad” smartphone campaign, offering customers, existing and new, a chance to win prizes such as couple trips to Thailand and motorbikes. The smartphone giant has again strengthened its offering by partnering with blockchain expert ALAX.
ALAX, the blockchain-based app and games distribution platform set to hold its TGE on April 17th 2018, has today announced the signing of a Letter of Intent (LOI) with Gionee.
The intended partnership will see the ALAX platform preinstalled on Gionee’s new smartphones, with older models moving to the ALAX platform in line with regular updates. The agreement will allow app developers access to tens of millions of users worldwide through the blockchain-powered distribution platform.
The announcement signifies a huge number of future potential users for ALAX. China is now the leading market for smartphone shipments, with 30% of the market share. In 2017, Gionee shipped 40 million smartphones worldwide, and the company’s phones are one of the most popular brands in India.
Access to millions of ‘unbanked’ consumers
Mobile games revenue in Southeast Asia is predicted to reach $2.4 billion by 2021 and, with other intended partnerships also in the pipeline, ALAX is set to provide app and game developers with access to millions of new consumers in emerging markets.
Many of these consumers do not have access to credit or debit cards (the World Bank Global Finance Index 2014 identified 2 billion ‘unbanked’ adults worldwide), yet do have relatively easy access to cash and 3G/LTE smartphones.
With the ALAX platform, customers will be able to purchase ALAX tokens in cash through the existing Dragonfly retailer network. ALAX tokens are then used in-app to purchase games and apps direct from the developer. Not only does this quicken the transaction and reduce the price of content, it also opens gaming and app purchases to customers without access to traditional methods of payment.
A fairer deal for developers
Traditionally, to buy games or apps, customers had to use PayPal, credit cards, or make payments using prime rate SMS, where mobile network operators would take 50-70% commission from the price paid by the user for an app/game. DECENT estimates that game developers currently receive a maximum of 70% of the profit from an app, and it can often take 3-6 months for all payments to be processed.
In contrast, ALAX token payments will be made directly to the developer, and can then be exchanged for a FIAT currency (USD, EUR, THB, PH, etc) at any time.
TGE scheduled for April 17th with platform available immediately following its conclusion
The final ALAX product is currently completing the testing and development stage. An MVP is expected to be released in the coming weeks, and the platform will be available on both new and existing Gionee devices immediately following the conclusion of the company’s Token Generation Event (TGE), scheduled to start on April 17th.
