[Author: Andy Gstoll] Most of us who work in the corporate space of MNCs know, that decisions are not to be made based on your gut feeling but rather based on research, analysis, feasibility and prioritization. But even if you ignore all of those you can be sure that the iPhone will have a place in your mobile platform strategy, almost sure that is. We are all aware that the iPhone has revolutionized the mobile content business and what was true about 18 months ago certainly isn’t true today, especially when considering that more than 30 million units have been sold globally and roughly 2 billion apps have been downloaded.

I am writing this article in Singapore, which I have called my home for the past 5 years. Like almost all of Asia, this country is not iPhone territory. There are several challenges with the iPhone in this part of the world, the main one being its high price, approx. Euro 700 without a contract. Although we have seen growing disposable incomes in many parts of Asia, the price tag of the iPhone is still higher than the average monthly income of most.

But there are other problems such as the lack of suitable payment mechanisms for apps. As credit card penetration is very low in most of Asia, Apple is unable to leverage from a significant database of iTunes accounts. [...]

More in the fourth edition (page 11) of our mobile zeitgeist SPECIALS this time with focus on mobile technologies.