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Twist Mobile Mentioned in Indian Express
According to McKinsey, India will have 350 million internet users by 2015, with over half of them accessing the Web through mobile phones. Khutal, a staunch believer in the local, wants a share of this pie. “When you have a market outside your door, why would you want to sell to customers who are thousands of miles away? I have never been to the US, so how can I create apps for American sensibilities?” he says. “Today, India has a large population between the ages of 18 and 24 and they cannot afford smartphones. I have to cater to them and to villagers who have access to educational and utility apps but don’t have much in the way of entertainment. For instance, one would think that an app that morphs your photo to predict what you will look like 30 years from now would be of no use in rural India. But this app of ours, Age Effect, is immensely popular in villages.”
Article link: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-new-app-map/901901/5
Twist Mobile CEO on EYE Magazine by Indian Express Group
Virat Singh Khutal has an answer to this problem: stop this slavish adherence to high-end smartphones and create mobile phone products for the common man, he says. A programmer and former game designer, Khutal, now 31, started a mobile app company in his hometown, Indore, three years ago with the dream of delivering apps to the masses. After a series of misadventures in the first two years, which brought his company, Twist Mobile, to the brink of a shutdown, Khutal came out wiser and decided to focus on original, free apps that would earn money through in-app advertising. He must have done something right, for Twist Mobile’s 30-plus apps have clocked over 35 million downloads in Indian app stores including Nokia’s Ovi store, Getjar and Mobango. Nine of the apps have crossed a million downloads each and one of them, Psycho Hunter for Nokia, hit the magic number in 15 days. The oddly named Psycho Hunter is a game for feature phones that promises to reveal the player’s personality. It is through these simple, seemingly pointless apps that Twist Mobile now manages to make $1,000 in revenue every day.
Article link: http://epaper.indianexpress.com/22870/Eye-The-Sunday-Express-Magazine/January-22-28-2012#dual/1/2
Twist Mobile mentioned in BusinessWorld
Virat Singh Khutal from Indore is an app entrepreneur. He is the CEO of Twist Mobile. The two-year-old company has 20-plus apps on various platforms including iOS , Android and Symbian. Khutal says he started with a staff of eight and clocked revenues of Rs 1 crore in the first year. Today, he has 35 people and counts the number of app downloads at 30 million. He likes working out of Indore — software developers are cheaper there and also more loyal.
Article link: http://businessworld.in/businessworld/content/App-App-And-Away.html?hopping=2
Twist Mobile in The Hindu Business
Most people do not write about feature phones, but Mr Virat Khutal, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of TwistMobile, a company that makes mobile apps, said: “Many people choose platforms based on what is written in newspapers and Android and iOS are usually in the news. But there is a huge audience that is looking for content on feature phones and not getting it.”
Article link: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/info-tech/article2749955.ece
Twist Mobile in Economic Times
"We will make them (developers) all multi-millionaires," Nokia India managing director D Shivakumar told ET at its strategy summit last week. He pointed out to the success enjoyed by Indore-based Twist Mobile whose seven apps have seen more than 19.3 million users over the last eight months. "We want our partners (read developers) to be profitable and successful. We show developers the market opportunity because we look at the consumer trend.
