iPhone application invasion in Turkey

There have been many major application releases in Turkey recently; mostly from the carriers and media companies. With the recent introduction of 3G to the market and marketing muscle of carriers for data consumption on high-end phones; Turkey is quickly ramping up to the position it was supposed to be in a -mature mobile market- world. Here are some recent numbers from the the leading operator of the market;

Turkcell has sold about 200,000 VINN modems and netbooks since it introduced 3G

on July 30th 2009

• The number of people in Turkey who have transitioned to 3G since July 30th is more

than 4 million

• There are about 2 million active 3G users in Turkey

• The number of Turkcell subscribers who have used Turkcell’s video service has

reached 1 million

• About 72% of Turkcell’s total data traffic takes place within the 3G network

• 93% of VINN modem users prefer 4GB packages and 78% of VINN subscribers use

Turkcell 3G for their broadband Internet needs

I found opportunity to review those recent apps and all I can say is they are already ahead of the curve in many fundamental aspects such as; speed, usability and stability. Vodafone's app is basically a follower to Turkcell's traffic app for Istanbul. But "support for all operators" is a thumbs-up for it. Turkcell's new app Pusula aims to meet all "local" needs of its subscribers with a cool AR support. CNN Turk's app is my favorite, which provides almost all the news-related content in a very intuitive form, including live stream. And ATV's application is a live-stream app as well, which runs pretty smoothly so far. Since I don't use my iPhone's phone function anymore, thanks to all those apps, it is my mobile multimedia device from now on.

We all know that Turkey is still an attractive market for Internet just because it is not very mature yet and Internet penetration is still relatively low and growing fast. But what I believe is the potential for mobile Internet is way bigger mostly because we were that late on 3G launch. There are many new value propositions that digital agencies can provide to meet their clients' short and medium term mobile needs, starting with basics; mobile presence.