FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Claudia Trivilino – claudia@appalliance.org
App Developers Meet Policy Makers at the European Parliament for the Fifth Tech Policy Roundtable
BRUSSELS (26 September 2016) – Today, Eva Paunova MEP and the Application Developers Alliance, the trade association representing thousands of app developers and publishers worldwide, hosted the Tech Policy Roundtable “Competition and Innovation in the App Ecosystem”. Industry participants in the Roundtable included Edward Cooper, Head of Mobile at Revolut, Boris Kolev, Managing Partner at DigiMark, Ian Rumac, Lead Android Developer at Superpopcorn and Lenard Koschwitz, Director for European Affairs at Allied for Startups. The discussion was moderated by Paul Hofheinz, President, Executive Director and Co-Founder of the Lisbon Council.
Policy makers, digital experts and entrepreneurs discussed the current state of competition in the app ecosystem and its benefits to innovation, growth and employment in light of the findings of the latest Alliance report: “Competition in the Mobile App Ecosystem”. App developers with different backgrounds participated in the panel and along the lines of the report, they showed confidence in the maturation of the app marketplace and agreed that changing the rules could be harmful, rather than beneficial.
“It is impressive to see that the app economy has already generated 1.64 million jobs in Europe and is one of the most competitive marketplaces in the modern economy. At the current pace, it is estimated that the app economy will employ 4.8 million people and contribute €63 billion to the EU’s GDP by 2018”, said Eva Paunova, MEP to open the Roundtable. “Our job is to help lay the path for what the EU could do to create the best environment to help the app economy continue to grow and thrive”.
The report shows that 97% of EU publishers already see a competitive app economy and nearly 90% are concerned about unnecessary intervention from external authorities in light of the European Commission’s ongoing investigation into Android’s operating system and applications. “Our industry has been portrayed as one in its infancy, but in the past few years the sector has matured into a stable, prosperous and competitive ecosystem,” said Jake Ward, CEO of the Application Developers Alliance. “Most importantly, developers, publishers and platforms are responding well to market forces and are meeting customers’ needs with smart and innovative solution.
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The DevelopersAlliance is the world’s leading advocate for software developers and the companies invested in their success. Alliance members include industry leaders in consumer, enterprise, industrial, and emerging software development, and a global network of more than 75,000 developers.
