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0e10671With the Meffys 2014 open for entries, (just 10 days left to enter!) we are taking a look at some of last year’s winners to find out what they’ve been up to since they celebrated their success in the international mobile content & commerce awards.

This week, we catch up with NQ Mobile – winner of the Consumer Trust Award, which recognises the efforts of companies creating a more trusted environment and experience on mobile for consumers. Gavin Kim, President, International & Chief Commercial Officer shares what’s been happening for NQ since last year’s Meffys in San Francisco.

What did NQ Mobile win a Meffy for?

NQ Mobile was incredibly honored to have our flagship app, NQ Mobile Security, recognized by MEF as the winner in Consumer Trust category. Founded in 2005, our company was one of the first in the world to recognize that the incredibly rapid and unchecked growth of the mobile ecosystem was creating a potential hotbed for nefarious activity. In the years since, we have remained completely devoted to developing safeguards to ensure mobile users have secure mobile experiences.

Today NQ Mobile Security stands alone with a global footprint, registered user accounts in the hundreds of millions and partnerships with premier carriers and retailers around the world. While we continue to grow and expand, mobile security remains at the heart of everything we do.

Why do you think the judges picked your entry?

The honor conveyed by the Meffy judges is further validation that NQ Mobile Security is the world’s most effective and user friendly mobile security application.  Also, I think the timing is right and the judges simply may be recognizing that this stuff is important. As the penetration of smartphones and tablets continue to increase, so do the risks. Thankfully, we’re now seeing an increase in awareness of malware and data privacy and understanding of the potential impact of lax mobile security from the average smartphone user.

“As the penetration of smartphones and tablets continue to increase, so do the risks. Thankfully, we’re now seeing an increase in awareness of malware and data privacy and understanding of the potential impact of lax mobile security from the average smartphone user.”

What have you been up to since winning the Meffy?

Firmly established as the leading provider of mobile security applications, NQ Mobile is now becoming the world’s leading platform for safe mobile experiences, with additional positioning the company for long-term growth. We are looking holistically at the relationship between people and their devices and developing trusted products and services for all of their mobile needs.

At the same time, we are looking at the market as a global eco-system wherein success is contingent on cooperation with partners throughout the mobile value chain. With this mindset, we are constantly looking at our existing relationships and evaluating how we can bring more to the table.

For example, we’ve broadened our product portfolio to include privacy and parental control solutions, which contributed to a rapid organic increase in worldwide user-base and brought additional carrier, manufacturer and retail partnerships for our consumer applications. We’ve expanded our market share across North America, Latin America, Europe, Japan, Korea and India. We’ve also made some exciting acquisitions that extend our reach across the mobile enterprise, gaming and advertising markets. Thanks to these initiatives, NQ Mobile is now operating in the three highest-growth mobile Internet areas: Mobile Security/Productivity, Mobile Device Management and Mobile Games.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sVLzz28V6g&w=480&align=right]What are your plans for the year ahead?

We are very excited about the continued growth and development of our platform services, which includes our proprietary NQ Live and Music Radar technologies.

NQ Live is an always-on replacement for the Android device wallpaper and replaces the static home screen with a whole new smartphone experience.  For content creators and distributors as well as brands and advertisers, NQ Live builds greater engagement with smartphone users through real-time experiences, with fresh content and functionality tailored to each individual device user’s interests delivered in real time. For the end user, NQ Live offers a far more interactive, informative and immersive experience than any live wallpaper ever could, and unlike a launcher, it doesn’t change the traditional function or experience of the native Android or manufacturer’s launcher.

In the US, NQ Live now powers Sprint Live, the next generation Sprint ID experience, and the newly announced Sprint Fit Live experience that will be available on the Samsung Galaxy S5 Active Smartphone for Sprint.

Along with NQ Live, Sprint has also adopted another new addition to our platform services, Music Radar, into the new Music Live experience on the HTC One® M8 Harmon Kardon® Edition device.  And, Huawei recently announced a global partnership with us to help differentiate their ring back tone business and give users the opportunity to use music search to set their ringback tone.

Available for both Android and iOS platforms, Music Radar is an innovative, content-based music information retrieval (MIR) application that gives users the ability to discover matching audio files from a variety of input. Since its launch in October 2013, Music Radar has experienced rapid organic user growth while attracting high-profile partners including Huawei, Sprint, China Unicom and China Mobile..  In fact, we power China Mobile’s MIGU mobile music service which is one of the largest mobile music services globally.

We hope to be doing another interview with you about these services after the 2014 awards are announced!

Apart from your own, which mobile companies are the ones to watch right now?

There is a lot of innovation going on in the mobile space. There are almost too many to list. From manufacturers to operators to software companies, all are contributing to a very vibrant and exciting eco-system.

Meffys_728x90There are 16 categories to enter in 2014. Judged by expert panels of international journalists, analysts, academics and VCs, the Meffys provide companies and innovators with an unrivalled opportunity to be considered for the global mobile industry’s top accolades with winners announced at MEF Global Forum 2014 in San Francisco 17th – 19th November. 2014 entries are open now – be quick, the deadline for entries is July 25th!

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