Polar Mobile has unveiled plans to offer comprehensive support for BlackBerry PlayBook tablet devices, saying it will launch at least 100 apps for the device during 2011. IDC forecasts that worldwide shipments of tablets will reach 70.8m units by next year. The PlayBook is due to launch on 19 April.
Polar Mobiles SMART Platform currently powers over 500 mobile apps across every smartphone for over 200 publishers in 10 countries. The 180+ ‘Super Apps’ powered by Polar Mobile on BlackBerry smartphones today have been used by over 4m people in 100 countries. The company’s customers include Time Inc, Conde Nast, Bloomberg, CBS Sports and Shanghai Daily.
“Tablets represent a massive opportunity for our customers to increase reach, drive engagement and create a new revenue stream”, says Polar Mobile CEO, Kunal Gupta. “We are excited to extend our platform to the PlayBook, and believe it will be a key content consumption device that publishers need to be on.”
“Polar Mobile is a leader in helping publishers launch high-quality mobile apps easily and quickly, while enabling a compelling user experience”, says Tyler Lessard, vice president, global alliances, at Research In Motion. “The PlayBook is an important device that partners like Polar Mobile are investing heavily on, given the opportunity to grow distribution and revenue.”
Polar Mobile says its SMART Platform provides publishers with an affordable solution that is fast and easy to get to-market across every major device. The platform is a fully hosted and managed solution, incorporating a variety of mobile ad servers, mobile reporting, end-user support and other key platform services.