APUS, a Chinese maker of mobile applications for Android smartphones, aims to grow its user base to two billion in the next three years from the current 1.2 billion, Tao Li, founder and executive director, APUS Group, said.
“Globally speaking, we have 1.2 billion users out of which 20% are from the Indian market. So, we have a big user base in India,” he said adding that APUS had also completed C round of financing.
Applying for IPO
“In the first half of 2017, APUS completed a C round of financing, with hundreds of millions of RMB (renminbi) invested by domestic investors such as Shenzhen Venture Capital. The company valuation reached 12 billion RMB accordingly,” Mr. Tao said in an email interview. “We are applying for IPO,” he added.
APUS has completed three rounds of financing. In June 2014, APUS received a 100 million RMB investment from Northern Light Venture Capital and Redpoint Ventures in Series A funding. In December 2014, APUS received $100 million in Series B funding led by Chengwei Capital, SIG and Qiming Venture Partners.
The Beijing-headquartered company has “enough funds and financial resources to invest, develop and support local Internet companies in India,” he said.
“Our main area of interest will be those who provide Internet services such as life, social and e-commerce companies that fulfil the APUS ecosystem.
Unveil new products
“I hope that by the end of next year, we will acquire more than 100 million users and launch five new products in the market. By that time, we also hope that APUS becomes a well-known brand in India, and we will continue to increase investment accordingly,” he said.
“The development of the Internet industry in India is what makes it so attractive to the global Internet-dependent companies. Second, Internet development in India is at a preliminary stage.
“Despite the 1.3 billion population in India, most of them do not have access to the Internet, and some of them don’t know how to use it. But having said that, we have also seen that more and more people are adopting smartphones and getting access to the Internet.
“India has a total of 472.72 million wireless Internet subscribers and of this 328.83 million are in urban areas and 143.8 million or 30.44% are in rural areas. The user base is projected to grow to 730 million by 2020, according to the government. “India is truly an Android smartphones-driven market and is the fastest growing market for both iOS and Android applications,” added Mr. Li.
