EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Developers looking to target app markets in Asia face challenges when it comes to product monetisation, according to a new Mobile World Live video.

Sandy Shen, research director for Gartner, noted: “there is always a tendency that users prefer free downloads, free apps much more than paid-for apps.  And that’s also true for the global market, but it seems that the tendency is a little bit more reinforced in the Asian market.”

This move away from paid-for downloads toward freemium products was also observed by Eberhard Schoneburg, CEO of Hong Kong-based Artificial Life. “Monetising apps in the beginning was very easy, because there were relatively few apps and very few providers for these apps…If you go into this market now it’s like $0.99 or zero. So you have to somehow be able to monetise in different ways, through advertisement, or in-app purchases, and that’s what pretty much everybody is doing right now.”

In order to generate revenue from subscribers whether through in-app purchases or advertising, the key is to offer users a product which delivers value to users. Andrew Lauder, CEO of myLanguage, observed: “They need to see something that they can get, that they can use, and then there needs to be something on top of that that they’re willing to pay for.”

Among the other themes discussed were the need for localised content, fragmentation, and the potential for HTML5. View the video here.