What Think Apps 2025 Really Said (Between the Slides)

When Google brings its brightest minds to town, you listen. Think Apps 2025 lit up Lahore on October 23rd, an event that unpacked how developers can actually win in a market being rewritten by AI, new user behavior, and tougher competition.

Google’s Country Director for Pakistan, Malaysia, and Frontier Markets, Farhan Qureshi, set the tone early. He talked about how Pakistan’s developer community is becoming globally competitive. Our local studios have been behind viral hits like My Supermarket Simulator 3D and Bakery Stack: Cooking Games, proving that creativity here travels far. But he also pointed out a truth that many in the room quietly nodded to: growth has gotten harder. The pandemic created a surge in app usage, but now the market is overcrowded, user acquisition costs are rising, and ad fatigue is real. Instead of depending on one-hit wonders, our developers now have to think beyond installs and focus on sustainable monetization.

That point flowed into the session by Kari Oksanen, Head of Sales for Pakistan and Frontier Markets at Google. He revealed a major shift, for the first time, non-gaming in-app purchases have overtaken gaming. The reason being short-form content and AI-driven personalization. Short, fast-paced videos keep users hooked because they deliver quick emotional hits, and AI makes that grip stronger by serving exactly what each viewer wants to see next. Another eye-opening insight was about Gen Z gamers, a group many brands still misunderstand. Gen Z spends an average of 6.5 hours gaming daily, their spending is growing twice as fast as any other generation, and most of them are happy to watch ads in exchange for rewards. That’s a dream segment for hybrid monetization where users pay with both time and money. He gave a powerful reminder that if you’re not designing for Gen Z, you’re designing for decline.

From there, the conversation zoomed out to sustainability. Hector Balasch, Head of AppDev Sales for Southeast Asia and South Asia Frontier, reminded everyone that if monetization breaks the user’s trust, it breaks the business too. He shared how Google’s moving toward ad formats that respect user flow, like picture-in-picture or side-by-side ads, giving users control instead of interrupting them. The insight here is important: user-friendly monetization is no longer optional. Apps that feel intrusive won’t survive long in a privacy-first era.

Denis Nichifor picked up that thread with the idea of a “Growth Flywheel.” He explained that relying on a single revenue stream doesn’t cut it anymore. Hybrid monetization is inevitable in the future app ecosystem. Google’s AdMob is designed to support this with faster ad delivery, higher CPMs (10–20% more), and access to 180+ demand sources. In practice, that means developers don’t have to choose between earning more and keeping the user experience smooth, they can finally have both.

Then came one of the most actionable sessions of the day, from Game District’s Marketing Executive, Laiha Tauseef. Her studio’s games have crossed 100 million downloads globally, and she shared exactly how. Her first rule was: “Data is king, speed is queen.” The faster you test, the faster you learn, and the faster you grow. She claimed A/B testing to be the heartbeat of user acquisition and product evolution. Her second insight was: hybrid monetization needs hybrid acquisition. You can’t scale if you’re only chasing paying users or only ad-watchers. You have to build for both. And her third insight was “connect everything”. When Google Ads, Play, and Firebase talk to each other, every decision — from creative testing to retention — becomes sharper and faster.

Tanzeela Khan, Growth Manager at Google, made a strong case for why developers should double down on iOS. Even though Android dominates in downloads, iOS owns the revenue game as 70% of global app revenue comes from it. She introduced Google’s On-Device Measurement Event Data (ODM EVD), which helps advertisers collect richer, privacy-safe conversion data directly from the device. In plain terms: it gives a clearer picture of which campaigns are actually working, letting Google’s AI models optimize bids with real-time accuracy. This results in campaigns that convert up to 4 times better. For developers still struggling to track results after Apple’s privacy changes, this feature is a game-changer that replaces guesswork with clear, actionable data.

Monika Pratiwi’s talk centered on how Google’s AI tools now measure video performance just as effectively as other big platforms. This means publishers can finally know whether their videos are pulling real value or just views. She also broke down how Google’s flexible ROAS bidding now supports different monetization types, from ad-heavy games to in-app purchases to hybrid setups. She established that there’s no one-size-fits-all formula anymore. App industry players need a bidding strategy tuned to their business model to avoid wasting ad spend on misaligned campaigns.

Another memorable session came from Fasieh Mehta, who managed to blend humor, insight, and local pride, dressed in a shalwar kameez, no less. He laid out 3 practical moves every app business needs to make: master monetization (move beyond basic ads and focus on lifetime value), specialize (build for specific problems, not everyone), and embrace AI early (because soon it’ll be a requirement). 

The case study sessions turned ideas into real-world proof. Jasmine Nguyen from Falcon Game Studio showed how leveraging audience signals (using real behavioral data to guide creative testing) helped her studio grow to over 5 billion global downloads. Wesley Yiu from Noctua Games revealed how smarter data tracking on iOS helped them maintain profitability even with rising user acquisition costs. And Ahmed Abu Bakar from Vyro closed with how AI is humanizing apps, making every experience more personal and intuitive.

By the end of Think Apps 2025, one theme kept surfacing: the future of apps is about intelligence. For Pakistan’s developer community, the opportunity is massive… but only for those ready to build smarter, move faster, and design for a user who expects more than just another app icon on their screen.