Strategic Alliances: Maximizing App Growth through OEMs

Discover how strategic alliances with OEMs can enhance app visibility, user trust, and acquisition. Learn the benefits of pre-installed apps, and ad placements, and explore successful case studies and future trends in the app economy.

Imagine a world where thousands of new mobile devices come to life every minute, ready to connect people, entertain, and serve countless purposes. With so many smartphones in users’ hands and millions of apps vying for their attention, how can your app stand out?
Having the right partnerships for your mobile app marketing and user acquisition is key to your app’s organic and inorganic growth. Collaborations with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) can significantly boost app visibility, enhance user trust, and drive user acquisition. By integrating your app across various device-level placements such as app stores, folders, banners, video ads, and splash screens, your app seamlessly becomes part of the user’s mobile journey. From the moment the user first personalizes their device, through daily interactions, your app maintains visibility, driving continuous engagement and retention. Let’s dive into how these powerful collaborations can take your app to new heights.

Understanding OEM Ecosystem 

OEMs are companies that produce devices such as smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches. They include industry giants like Samsung, Xiaomi, and Huawei to name a few, as well as other regional players. These manufacturers have vast distribution networks and a large customer base, providing a unique opportunity for app developers to pre-install their apps on devices, gain access to exclusive marketing channels, and benefit from co-branding opportunities. 

However, the potential of OEM partnerships extends far beyond just the initial app installation. The real value is in the ongoing, interactive experience that these alliances can provide during the user’s experience. After the initial setup, apps can still keep users involved through the numerous access points throughout the device interface. That’s right, through such targeted mediums as custom folders, banners and video ads, and AI-driven on-device recommendations. Through Appnext’s Out of Box Experience (OOBE) and its broader app discovery platform, apps are not only part of the initial device personalization but remain an integral component of the user’s daily mobile interactions. The platform provides your app with the opportunity to be recommended to users in a personalized and contextual manner, at various points in the user’s journey, so your app remains fresh in their mind long after the initial setup. This persistent presence drives sustained engagement, increased app usage, and higher retention rates.

By leveraging these continuous engagement strategies, OEM partnerships can transcend the launching pad for app exposure into a robust engine for long-term user interaction and loyalty, ensuring that your app becomes a consistent part of the user’s digital life.

Appnext’s Strategic Reach

Appnext has forged strong alliances with leading OEMs and mobile operators, positioning itself as a pivotal player in the app ecosystem. Here’s a look at the substantial benefits Appnext brings to the table through its strategic partnerships:

• Global Partnerships: Appnext collaborates with over 40 leading OEMs and mobile operators,  app developers, and marketers to expand their reach and access a premium global audience.
  
  
• Massive User Base: With 500 million daily active users (DAU) globally and 15 million new app installs monthly, Appnext offers unparalleled reach and engagement opportunities to accelerate growth via its all-in-one platform.
  
  
• Exclusive Ad Formats: Appnext is partnered with all the major OEM brands and as a result, has new and exclusive ad placements. These special ad formats are intended to grab user focus and provide a greater degree of impact, thus making advertising campaigns more effective and efficient.
  
  
• Global Reach: We operate in key regions including India, Southeast Asia, EMEA, China, and LATAM. This wide geographic presence provides advertisers with exposure to a unique, highly active user population, enabling them to reach distinct audiences in various markets with great accuracy.

Benefits of Collaborating with Appnext and OEMs

1. Pre-installed Apps: One of the most significant advantages of partnering with OEMs is the ability to have your app pre-installed on devices. This ensures immediate visibility and accessibility to users, bypassing the competition in app stores. Pre-installation can lead to a higher user acquisition rate and increased engagement, as users are more likely to try apps that are readily available on their devices.
   
   
2. Access to Global Markets: OEMs operate globally, often catering to regions where traditional app stores may not have a strong presence. Partnering with OEMs allows developers to penetrate new markets, reaching premium users.
   
   
3. Enhanced Visibility: Expand your reach to both new and existing mobile consumers through a diverse range of ad placements that offer both broad scale and high-quality engagement. By leveraging various advertising strategies and platforms, you can effectively connect with a wide audience, ensuring your message resonates with both potential and current customers. This approach not only maximizes your brand’s visibility but also enhances the overall impact and effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
   
   
4. User Trust: OEMs enjoy the privilege of having prior trust and credibility with their users. Often, when users purchase mobile devices they have done enough research into the OEM brands and have their own favored devices that come from a place of trust in the brand. Hence, apps associated with well-known OEMs often benefit from the trust and credibility of the manufacturer.
   
   
5. Seamless User Experience: By ensuring that apps are part of the initial device setup, developers can create a seamless user experience that integrates smoothly with the device’s ecosystem, enhancing user satisfaction and retention. This approach not only engages users from the start but also continues to connect with them along the daily mobile journey via various ad formats and across multiple inventories, ensuring ongoing interaction and sustained app usage.

While the benefits are substantial, OEM collaborations do come with challenges. Developers must navigate the complexities of managing multiple partnerships and understanding regional market dynamics. Appnext’s extensive network and local expertise can help developers overcome these hurdles, providing the necessary support and insights to optimize their campaigns.

Challenges and Considerations in OEM Collaborations

Although the advantages of working with OEMs are great, there are many challenges and issues that app developers and marketers need to recognize to fully utilize their strategies.

1. Navigating Regional Market Dynamics: The OEMs usually have to serve many different geographic markets, all with unique cultural preferences, user behaviors, and regulatory environments. Developers must customize their app offerings and marketing strategies to conform to regional expectations and compliance requirements to capitalize on an OEM partnership. For instance, an application that does well in Western markets might need to be considerably altered to click with Asian or Middle Eastern users. It is important to grasp these subtleties to capitalize fully on OEM relationships.
2. Managing Multiple OEM Relationships: For app developers who are trying to scale globally, it can be very complicated to manage all the different OEM partnerships. Every manufacturer has its own set of technical specifications, partnership agreements, and strategic focus. Effective management requires a well-coordinated approach to maintain consistent communication, adapt to varying demands, and align on mutual goals. From the technical integration issues to negotiating the terms of app placement and co-marketing campaigns.
   
3. Ensuring Optimal App Performance and User Experience: Pre-installing an app on a device ensures visibility, but it also comes with the responsibility of delivering a seamless user experience. Apps that do not perform well or align with the expectations set by the OEM can lead to poor user reviews and damage both the app’s reputation and the brand. It is expected by manufacturing partners that the applications will perform to certain standards and it is the responsibility of the developer to test these apps on different devices and operating systems to ensure that this is the case.
   
4. Balancing User Privacy and Data Security: In a landscape where user data privacy and security are of paramount importance, developers must be vigilant in maintaining compliance with global privacy regulations, such as GDPR and CCPA. Many of these OEM partnerships involve data sharing to improve user experience and app recommendations, and that requires some pretty solid data governance frameworks. It is a delicate balance that developers must maintain, protecting the security of the data, yet utilizing the information to tailor the experience of the app.
   
5. Evolving OEM Strategies and Technological Advancements: The technology landscape is constantly evolving with OEMs constantly changing their software, hardware, and ecosystem plans. Developers need to keep one step in front of these changes, just to make sure their applications continue to work and can tap into any new features or avenues of distribution offered by the manufacturers. For example, the strides in AI and machine learning are continually being absorbed into OEM, which in turn provides app developers with the chance to create and stand out from the rest, but at the same time, it also poses a challenge for them.

In recognizing and overcoming these hurdles, developers will more effectively be able to leverage OEM relationships and ensure that their apps not only maintain but continue to grow and engage users in a very crowded app marketplace.

Harnessing the Power of Appnext for App Growth

Appnext provides an innovative approach to app growth and user engagement to elevate mobile advertising strategies via its platform that offers various solutions that can drive business growth Appnext understands marketers’ goals and can manage your entire marketing budget and KPIs on multiple platforms that deliver results. Appnext ensures that your app is present at every touchpoint, from pre-installations to app store placements, to targeted ad formats, so that the user not only sees your app the second they set up their device but throughout. Appnext’s strategic partnerships with OEMs and its global presence give it a unique edge as mobile technology and user expectations shift. It’s this ability to engage apps at each step of the mobile user’s journey, from initial contact to sustained interaction, that keeps the apps in the forefront at all times.

 As the pace of mobile growth and innovation continues to accelerate, Appnext’s solution provides a holistic answer to the challenges of app marketing and user acquisition—making Appnext the go-to platform for any app marketer seeking to achieve success on a worldwide scale.