Mexico doesn't spring to mind when you think about emerging technology hotspots.

But thanks to its proximity to North America markets, the country has been growing solidly since 2010 with manufacturing and services performing strongly.

It also has a small but active mobile development community, including studios from the likes of Gameloft and Digital Chocolate.

And, based in the city of Chihuahua, Inode Entertainment is one of the leading lights in terms of domestic studios.

Formed in 2006, we caught up with CEO Jamie Enriquez to find out more about the company and his views about market opportunities.

Pocket Gamer: Can you give us some background on Inode?

Jamie Enriquez: I used to work for a big gaming company, and even though game programming has always been my passion, after a few months I felt a bit bored. I was doing the exact same thing over and over.

I had a few ideas for projects but saw that it was difficult to convince management of implementing them, so I left and for the next two years began working on development tools, and making contacts for the new company I hoped to form.

How did that experience shape how you work at Inode?

The focus of Inode Entertainment has always been to take into consideration the ideas and project of the team.

Here it does not matter if you have been with us for years, or if you have just started working. We take ideas from everybody. We focus on the core strengths of the individual and make a continuous effort to improve the skills and capabilities of each and everyone.

That's something I've rarely seen before, so we are very proud of this perpetual improvement.

As a small developer, how do you compete with larger companies?

Since the beginning, our focus has been to start small and make great things. Currently we are in one of the top ranked companies on the Nokia Store.

We set out not to do things with a big budget, but rather with big passion. We wanted to show people that great things can be done if one really wants it. One might not have the budget of a big company, but we make up for it working extra hard, working extra smart, and finding new ways to do thing.

Having said that, we have developed proprietary processes and tools that give us a competitive advantage. We can develop different types of content very fast and with great quality

You've been very successful on Nokia Java devices, so as the industry has moved to smartphone, how have you tried to keep the balance between games for feature phones and making new games for smartphones?

Yes, the industry has started to move from feature phones to smartphones, but there is enormous opportunity in the emerging markets.

I recently purchased a Nokia Asha 311 and have been so impressed with the quality and responsiveness of the device. I believe this is the future of the feature phone. I mean with this device, one has access to all the functionality expected on smartphones, but at a fraction of the cost.

I have also experimented with low cost Android phones and have been very disappointed. The phone runs on Android but the UI and everything is so slow. I'd much rather have an Asha 311 that comes preloaded with free games and content and is very responsive.

It is in this new market that we are developing great content for users.

So, you think the Java market is still worth supporting with new games?

Absolutely. According to our statistics and download reports, the new phones from Nokia have been extremely popular in emerging markets, and this translates to more content-hungry users.

I think the Java platform will be in the business for many years to come, and whoever takes that into consideration has a whole new market to tap into. The problem I see with the Apple and Google ecosystems is they are saturated because everybody wants the 'get rich quick app gold rush', but everybody is doing it and there are just too many apps.

What's it like being a mobile developer in Mexico?

It has been a bit hard. When I first started out and I old people that I wanted to start a gaming company, they would look at me in strange ways. They even went so far as saying 'Those things are only done in Japan or the US'.

But thanks to the help of friends, local university (UACH), local, state and national politicians, we have made a name for ourselves.

I personally have many goals for my country, state and home city. I see an opportunity to create a new kind of digital economy. We have been focused on agriculture for many years, but I see the possibility that instead of harvesting food and cattle, we can be harvesting technology and content.

I'd also like to publicly thank Ricardo Torres Knight, Dean of Engineering at UACH; Ricardo Boone, state legislator; Carlos Olson, Rene Chavira and David Dajlala from Secretary of Economics; Cesar Duarte, State Governor; Marco Quezada, major of Chihuahua city; David Arzola, Jorge Roa, Alejandra Chacon from Chihuahua software department; David Medina and Brenda Vazquez from Chihuahua State Government; and Eduardo Villa from ProMexico.

All of them have helped us in many ways, and we are very grateful.

Which have been your most successful games, and why do you think they were successful?

Our most popular games are Monster Truck Challenge, Moto Challenge and Ming Zhu. The first two are racing games and the third one is a puzzle game.

I believe they have been successful because we focus on the customer experience. We imagine what the user will see and feel when s/he reaches a certain point in the gameplay.

What are the biggest challenges you face and how are you planning to overcome them?

The challenge is to build the platform we intend. Currently we have close to 200 million users who have downloaded our games and apps, and 90 percent of them were acquired during 2012.

So our challenge is to monetise that userbase. If you think about it, those 200 million are users we can reach on the spot with updates and messages and that is very attractive to any marketing company.

Let's take the example of the Super Bowl - a 30 second ad cost $4 million and reached 111 million users in the US alone. We could do that for a company, but the difference is we could reach them worldwide and for a fraction of the cost.

To me, this is very impressive and we are very proud of it. Just think about it. We are more popular than Facebook or Google in the Nokia Store. That is huge!

What games should we be looking out for from Inode in 2013?

I want to mention that we are working on a new type of game which we plan on releasing later this year. If you think about it, video games are a type of game. I once read that playing games as a child actually train our brains Now, if games train our brain, imagine what we can do with a well designed game?

It can enable us to learn many skills such as create a business, be a good leader, or be a good citizen. So what we plan in the near future is to release several games with a distinctive factor that will go beyond entertainment to skill training, and we plan on this being barely noticeable to the user.

Another strategy is to learn from users who play games. Imagine a game where the user needs to design/re-design cities. After 1 million people play the game, all those hours of gameplay mean we can learn a lot about the planning and zoning of a city.

So in general, there is a lot that can be learned by playing video games, and we're working in that direction.

Thanks to Jamie for his time.

You can also learn more about the company from this 2012 video from Nokia's developer forum.