Appia | February 24, 2011 | Press Release
New execs will focus on delivering white-label app stores around the world
Durham, NC (Vocus/PRWEB) February 24, 2011
Appia, the world’s largest open app marketplace, today announces that it has launched its global expansion plans with the hiring of three new Sales Executives in key international markets. Juan Carlos Belair will oversee sales in Latin America (LATAM), with Sid Mahajan heading up the sales team in Asia Pacific (APAC), and Neil Geary, charged with head of sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). All three executives will report to Ken Hayes, Appia’s SVP of Business Development.
The three new VP of Business Development hires arrive on the heels of Appia’s recent $15 million funding announced in August of last year, with a major re-brand to Appia this month. The hires will support Appia’s new focus as a white-label app store platform for mobile operators, handset manufacturers and mobile portals.
“Emerging international markets represent a massive growth opportunity for our company,” said Jud Bowman, CEO of Appia. “Today we welcome three mobile industry veterans who will help us extend our white-label platform and content catalog to some of the top global carriers and handset manufacturers around the world.”
Juan Carlos Belair joins Appia after having spent the last eight years working with Latin American operators and mobile service providers to deliver SMS & WAP chat services. From 2001 to 2004 Juan Carlos served as VP of Product and Business Development at Speedy Movil, a joint venture between America Movile and Ericsson, where he developed Value Added Services and platforms for the AMX group. As Appia’s Vice President of Business Development for Latin America, Mr. Belair is based in Mexico City.
Neil Geary has spent the last seven years heading the Sales function at Selatra Ltd., one of the industry’s top mobile game service providers. Neil has extensive experience of partnering with mobile operators to provide fully outsourced Value Added Services (VAS) solutions into operators across the globe and has an in depth understanding of the mobile content industry. As Appia’s VP of Business Development for EMEA, Mr. Geary is based in Cork, Ireland.
Sid Mahajan has over fourteen years of Business Development experience in the mobile market selling to mobile operators and handset manufacturers. He has held sales and business development roles at several successful mobile startups including Seven Networks and Openwave as well as industry goliath, Nokia. He has extensive sales experience across the Asia Pacific mobile ecosystem with 37 operators, device OEM’s and App Developers. As Appia’s Vice President of Business Development for Asia Pacific, Mr. Mahajan is based in Singapore.
Expansion into the Latin America, Asia Pacific and European markets is a key growth driver for Appia. Strategy Analytics projects total global revenues from mobile application sales at almost $20 billion by 2015, with the majority expected from these regions. Asia Pacific is forecast to generate $9.3 billion in mobile application revenue, with EMEA markets producing over $5 billion and Central and Latin American projected to reach $875 million by 2015.
As the largest open app marketplace, Appia currently powers app stores for more than 40 partners, driving hundreds of thousands of downloads per day, and Appia provides its partners with a catalog of 140,000 paid and free apps across all major mobile platforms, including Android, BlackBerry, Java, Symbian, Windows and Palm. Unlike other app stores, Appia provides developers with an easy way to broaden their reach across a variety of app stores, with the end goal of driving more downloads and increasing revenue. The name Appia comes from “Via Appia”, the first major road connecting cities in the ancient Roman Empire, as Appia connects mobile developers with distribution in more than 200 countries.
About Appia
Appia is the world’s largest open app marketplace and white label storefront platform, supporting all operating systems and handsets. Today, Appia powers app storefronts for more than 40 partners reaching more than 100 million mobile subscribers in 200 countries and counting. Customers include four of the world’s top five handset manufacturers, three of the top four mobile operators in the US, three of the top ten mobile operators globally including Samsung, T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon Wireless.
The Appia Developer Program provides partners with a ready to launch catalog of over 140,000 paid and free apps from more than 30,000 global application developers.
Appia is headquartered in Durham, NC with offices in Dallas, TX, and Munich, Germany. For more information, please visit http://www.appia.com, or follow @Appia.
