OREANDA-NEWS.   i-Free, host of the 10th Mobile VAS & Apps Conference, has named the winners of the Russian Mobile Awards 2013, held as part of the conference. This year, prizes were awarded in six categories: Best Mobile Game, Best Non-Game App, Best Mobile Service, Best SMS Service, Best Mobile Service for Mobile or Offline Payments, and Best Startup.

The Russian Mobile Awards is an annual celebration of the best mobile products and services. This year, a total of 87 projects created and/or implemented by Russian and CIS businesses were nominated.

An impartial jury of top industry experts awarded points to each entry on a ten-point scale, applying a set of criteria specific to each category. The following products and services made it to the short list:

Games: Montezuma Blitz (Alawar Entertainment), Nitro Nation (Creative Mobile Games), Jungle Heat (Mail.Ru Games), Mushroom Wars (Creat Studio), Fate of a Nation (HeroCraft);
Non-game apps: Airlike (Displair), Droid Translator (Technology Improves the World), HopHop (Azoft), Lingvo iOS Phrasebook (ABBYY), Penxy (Penxy);
Mobile services: AdPhone (Mirotel), Aviasales (Aviasales.ru), MediaStage TV (BCC), VeloMesto (WelcomeMedia), Common Mobile Platform for the City of Moscow (Altarix);
SMS services: UMS (MegaLabs), “All Together” fundraiser marathon (Channel One), Subscriber Care (MTS), Moscow City SMS Portal and USSD Menu (Altarix), English Lessons (Beeline);
Payment services: Pay-me mobile pay-terminal (Beeline), Russian Standard Mobile Bank (payment functionality: wiring money by card number on RS-express.ru (Russian Standard Bank), Instabank (Instabank), MTS Money cyber-card (MTS), Tinkoff Mobile Bank (Tinkoff Credit Systems).
Startups: HUDWAY (RIT LLC), iPressPad (iPressPad), i-Uh (AngioScan), LifePay (LifePay), MedM (Swissmed Mobile Company).
The winning entries garnered the highest average score across all the judges. The winners received their prizes at an award gala on the first evening of the 10th Mobile VAS & Apps Conference in St. Petersburg. The award ceremony was emceed by Andrey Bednyakov, a popular TV presenter and entertainer, and Yulia Lebedeva, Director of Business Development at Nevosoft.

Winners of the Russian Mobile Awards 2013:

In the “Best Mobile Game” category, the winner was Jungle Heat, a strategy game submitted by Mail.Ru Games.

In the “Best Non-Game App” category, the winner was ABBYY’s Lingvo iOS Phrasebook, an app that helps users speak a foreign language by learning the most frequently used phrases, enabling them to generally feel comfortable while traveling abroad.

In the “Best Mobile Service” category, the winner was Common Mobile Platform for the City of Moscow, created by Altarix. This is an infrastructure for municipal mobile services in which all electronic public service providers can interact with each other.

In the “Best SMS Service category, the winner was “All Together,” the charity marathon on Channel One, which had raised upwards of 760 million rubles in flood relief funds for homesteads in the Far East. The bulk of the money was raised through text messaging.

In the “Best Mobile Service for Mobile or Offline Payments,” the winner was Tinkoff Mobile Bank, a card and account management app created by Tinkoff Credit Systems which can deliver any financial information to a user’s smartphone. 

In the “Best Startup” category, the winner was iPressPad, a system using the open standards HTML, CSS, and XML, which enables users to create iOS or Android mobile blogs, news bulletins or catalogues on a regular basis.

“The goal of the Russian Mobile Awards is to identify those products and services destined to become guiding lights for mobile industry professionals, and to identify the hottest market trends,” said Ekaterina Ivanova, who heads i-Free Events and the VAS & Apps Conference Organizing Committee. “The awards always bring new inspiration to the mobile industry. So, as always, we can expect more cool mobile products and services to hit the market in the wake of this year’s awards.”