The mobile games and entertainment apps industry has a huge customer base and this high demand has helped Pakistan gain immense visibility in this sphere of software development.

While companies like Pepper.pk topped BlackBerry’s Appworld with their game Ninja Fruit Bash, TenPearls won Nokia and AT&T Innovators 2011 contest through their game Animal 101, start-ups such as PiLabs also made their mark with mobile games such as ‘Field Garfield’ which is an official Garfield game.

Pakistan has been doing rather well in other categories of mobile app development as well and has received recognition worldwide. CNN and Techcrunch recently covered Groopic – an application developed by Lahore-based start-up Eyedeus to capture group pictures, allowing the photographer to be included in the picture as well. National Public Radio also covered Clean Lahore App – an application developed by Dr Umar Saif, to map localities with a high-risk of dengue outbreak and to capture dengue prevention steps being taken by local authorities.

Some other apps that have done well globally include Pepper.pk’s Photo Editor, which has been a top selling app on BlackBerry App World across all categories and countries. Another interesting app is Duddoo Aur Dhobi by JugnooMedia, which is an interactive application containing Urdu nursery rhymes for children. It is a step by JugnooMedia to preserve culture and tradition through local language content.

While a lot of development is done for foreign clientele, some interesting apps are developed for the local market as well. Olaround developed by Bramerz, is one such app that uses locality services allowing users to get loyalty points against the places they visit. They can later redeem these to get rewards.

Eccentrica Technologies on the other hand has developed an application for Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital. This app lets users make donations while having a look at their fund raising progress, keeping a track of news and events related to the hospital and send feedback. It also helps in keeping track of patient’s lab reports and appointments.

So be it Google Play, Apple App Store, Windows Phone Store, BlackBerry App World or Nokia Store, one could find a number of highly-ranked apps developed by Pakistani companies and individuals. They range from apps for productivity to social, sports and religion-based apps.

However, a lot needs to be done in terms of quality of the apps we produce. The apps that have gained global recognition are undoubtedly the highest quality apps produced here. However, there exist many more that could make it big but lack the functionality and performance to be so.

According to Syed Basit Ali, CEO of Eccentrica Technologies which is a mobile app and game development company, “The industry is flooded with mobile app developers and the number of apps coming out is overwhelming. I think we've reached a point where we have good numbers out there and it is about time we transition from quantity to quality. As we move toward quality apps, we will go higher in ranks of countries making mobile apps. I'm sure we can be one of the top app makers (a place known for quality app developers) within a couple of years. The transition has begun.”

Pakistan also needs to focus on capturing the niche that largely remains un-tapped. The niche is of m-commerce and m-banking applications. HBL MoneyWise is an m-banking application developed by HBL Pakistan, but due to absence of local m-banking apps most banks have been relying on apps developed outside of Pakistan to fulfil their mobile banking needs.

Most businesses on the other hand are still catching up with e-commerce options, yet m-commerce apps are likely to be well-taken considering that Pakistan has 125 million mobile subscribers and when it comes to Internet usage, 15 million people are expected to be use the internet through their mobile phones. Considering these statistics, developing m-commerce apps seems to be a promising opportunity for companies and individuals alike. However, while getting into the development of mobile e-commerce, e-banking or other mobile-based financial applications, strong emphasis needs to be paid to the design of the application, to ensure adequate security while conducting transactions through these apps. At the same time, they need to be user-friendly enough to give common users comfort when conducting transactions, without having to go through an endless series of check points.

Health-related mobile applications category is one that requires more work to be done. Mobile-based remote health-care provision and monitoring services may help quality health care reach to areas of Pakistan that currently do not have satisfactory health care facilities available. Mobile health applications may not be limited to this and could be developed for anything from better health management to getting instant emergency aid services.

Development is an important component to keep into consideration in order to bolster mobile application development, and more importantly utilising the local wireless internet infrastructure. As the world has moved towards 4G networks, we lag behind as even 3G infrastructure remains unavailable in Pakistan.

As Asaduallah Bin Yousuf, a freelance mobile applications developer puts it, “This is an era of connectivity. We see the popularity and demand of smartphones increasing significantly but without the right infrastructure in place, one cannot really innovate like the way people do in the developed countries."

We may continue to develop applications for the foreign markets but in order to reap their benefits locally, we ought to have the infrastructure available. This requires effort both on the part of government as well as organisations to take steps to upgrade the current structure. Organisations should play their role in highlighting the importance of the same to relevant authorities while continuing to make applications that help Pakistan become the top choice for mobile application development.