Mobile platform Blaast is no longer exclusively the domain of mobile operator XL Axiata as it announced on Tuesday on its Facebook page that it is now available on all mobile operators in Indonesia. It has also stopped using the hashtag #XLBlaast since 17 September. Blaast was launched in Indonesia in January of this year with an exclusive partnership with XL Axiata which has over 40 million subscribers. The exclusivity has ended after eight months.
It is certainly time for Blaast to expand to a greater market. Not only on feature phones and BlackBerry, Blaast will also be available on Android phones and it has provided early access for interested developers. Four million downloads to date definitely isn’t a small number and the availability of Blaast on Android, which is widely considered as the next big thing in Asia especially Southeast Asia, will provide an even larger potential user base for the Finnish platform.
The next target, following greater availability and usage, is monetization. In its report from last August, Blaast’s business model is a $1.5 monthly subscription fee from each user. The insignificant cost will be significant if it were to be applied to all Blaast users.
In addressing the Android market, Blaast has prepared a new monetization scheme. Given the nature of Android users, it seems that freemium would be a suitable approach to be applied in this case and Blaast has implemented in-app payment API. Interestingly it does not involve credit cards which means that it’s entirely possible that Blaast will engage mobile operators to optimize its payment system.
With a downward trend of feature phones in the next I’ve to ten years, it’s logical for Blaast to migrate to an even more popular platform. What becomes a problem is whether Android users will need apps that are developed on top of the Blaast platform. One of the solutions is the presence of exclusive and popular apps to assist the adoption of the platform on Android.
