Rohit Dadwal joins Mobile Marketing Association as Managing Director - APAC

US-based Mobile Marketing Association , a global non-profit trade association established to lead the growth of mobile marketing and its associated technologies, has appointed Rohit Dadwal as managing director of its Asia Pacific (APAC) branch. Dadwal, an ex-Microsoft Online Services executive, will be based in Singapore and lead MMA’s operations in the APAC region.

Prior to joining MMA, Rohit Dadwal was director - platform, mobile and ‘one care’, Asia Pacific at Microsoft Singapore. He has also worked as head of communication services at MSN South Asia; manager, business development at MSN India; and head of portal business at Bharti BT (British Telecom) Internet.

According to MMA, Dadwal has spent the last four years working on mobile value added services, user experience and wireless technologies and has been instrumental in launching new products and services across Asian and international markets.

In his new role, Rohit Dadwal will be responsible for building a sustainable ecosystem for the mobile marketing industry in the APAC region and will promote MMA as the leading association for region-wide consultation on key industry issues such as measurement and metrics, mobile advertising guidelines, codes of conduct and consumer best practices.

“Asia Pacific remains one of the strongest regions for mobile marketing, with mobile penetration higher than any other region globally,” Laura Marriott, president, MMA, has said. “The MMA is thrilled to announce the appointment of Rohit Dadwal as APAC MD and looks forward to working with him and our regional members to further aid the development of mobile marketing in the region.”

MMA has also released the findings of its Annual Global Mobile Attitude and Usage Study, conducted with research partner Synovate. The report spans selected markets in four geographic regions including US, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America, and helps brands and advertisers understand the global habits of mobile users and their overall receptiveness to mobile marketing.

The markets surveyed in the Asia Pacific segment of the study include Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore and South Korea. According to the study findings, the top five mobile phone features used in the APAC region are non-voice in nature and include camera, games, text messaging, saving images to a photo library and MP3 player.

The study reveals that over one-third of the mobile phone users in the Asia Pacific region use mobile web and one-in-five use it on a weekly basis. Common applications include news, browsing the internet, accessing mobile specific sites, and visiting sites related to music, weather and entertainment.

“Continued strong mobile phone and feature usage in Asia Pacific regions indicates large market opportunity for mobile marketers,” Beth Ritchey, vice president, Synovate Tech and Telecom, has said. “The most powerful mobile marketing efforts will offer applications that garner the greatest consumer interest such as mobile couponing and sale or discount alerts as well as targeted alerts relating to consumers’ accounts or products.”