Still Early Days, but GSMA Pleased With Progress on API Gateway

GSMA members and their “technology partners” are “fully engaged” on the group’s application programmable interface (API) initiative, Alex Sinclair, the association’s chief technology officer, said Wednesday during a TelecomTV webinar. Operators worldwide so far have made about 95 APIs commercially available in 21 markets, he said. “It’s exceeding our initial expectations, but there’s a very, very long way to go,” Sinclair said. GSMA launched the gateway a year ago (see 2302270069). “It’s still early days,” but the response from developers “so far has been pretty positive,” he said. Working with developers isn’t “necessarily” the wireless industry’s “strong suit,” he said: “We have to listen more to what they want and what they need. … At the end of the day, we want to reach as many developers as possible.” Sinclair said it’s too early to draw conclusions on what approach on APIs will work best. “We’ve tried this sort of thing before -- we’re not naive,” he said. “Ultimately, the market will decide what the best channel is.” A McKinsey & Co. study found a potential market of $300 billion by 2030, which is a “pretty bold and big number,” he said. On Tuesday, GSMA announced that China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom launched the first API in China.