Mobile device users are regularly scanning these barcodes.
Though QR codes have had a rough time trying to take off in the United States, smartphone users in the Philippines scan the barcodes on a regular basis.
This is a large opportunity for mobile marketers and the developers of scanner apps.
Garrett Gee is the CEO and co-founder of Scan Inc. The software designer and IT entrepreneur began the startup in Provo, Utah, and is now visiting the Philippines for a short stint. Though this is the first time that he has ever visited the country, his mother was both born and raised there.
Gee joined in on a roundtable discussion arranged by the American embassy and brought up QR codes.
He explained that his visit had been very pleasant so far and he appreciated how popular the download of the Scan app was both in that country and around the world. Within the first five months of its existence, it had already broken the one million download mark at the iTunes App Store.
The Scan app allows a smartphone user to benefit from both QR codes and near field communication (NFC) technology for both innovation and fun. This combines mobile commerce with social media.
According to Gee, “On the night we made it available on iTunes, I was happy to see a few people download it.” He went on to explain that “The following day, we hit a thousand downloads, then it went up to 10,000 until we saw 100,000 downloads every day.” Since then, Android and Widows Mobile versions have also been released.
Gee was approached by many companies and Silicon Valley venture capitalists that were interested in the app, which, for a while, was even ahead of the hit game Angry Birds by one space in the popularity charts.
This is a strong indicator regarding the wide acknowledgement of the potential that QR codes have in the mobile sphere. According to Gee, both technologies have a bright potential and are still only in the emerging portions of their lifespan. This is because of the widespread use of smartphones, and the tremendous number of possibilities for the use of these forms of communication.
