Los Angeles-based Mobile Roadie has just announced that its iPhone and Android application creation platform is launching in Europe in French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese and German. The company has also announced plans to set-up local offices, starting with Paris.
The company was founded in 2009 and has done apps for a number of high-profile clients, including Madonna, Ashton Kutcher and Taylor Swift – whose 2-month-old application has been used to stream her songs over 2 million times.
In France, Mobile Roadie has been behind the applications for big-name events like MIDEM, MIPTV and LeWeb, which was the company’s first application that also integrated UStream in order to live-stream the event – as well as the application for the newly released book of Vincent Ducrey, a web advisor for the French government.
As of this week, customer support as well as all the company’s applications will be available in these 5 additional languages – and the translations of its content management system will be available before the end of the year.
While the company’s platform isn’t particularly rivaled in the European market, US platforms like MixMatchMusic’s MobBase and Kyte offer similar do-it-yourself app creation platforms oriented towards the music and entertainment industry – but only for the iPhone. And regardless of the fact that all applications can be just as easily created for both phones on Mobile Roadie’s platform, the iPhone still dominates the app-creation space; roughly 85% of all applications made on the company’s platform are destined for Apple’s flagship product.
According to the company’s CEO, Michael Schneider, France represents the largest number of iPhones per capita in the world – which explains why the company decided to set-up shop in Paris first. The company is planning to hire a local sales and marketing team and eventually expand into other European countries.