Apple elevates Avtar Ram Singh as head of international marketing

Apple has elevated Avtar Ram Singh as Head of International Marketing for the App Store, Apple Arcade and the Apple Games app, with the role based in Singapore and effective from January 2026. The appointment expands Singh’s scope from a regional services marketing leadership position to a broader international remit tied directly to Apple’s app and gaming ecosystem.

In the fast-moving platform economy, a marketing leadership change at Apple rarely stays “just” a people update, because it often reflects where the company is placing its next set of bets: discovery, engagement, and long-term loyalty within services. For developers and game studios, this matters because the App Store and Apple Arcade are not simply distribution points—they shape how audiences find titles, how subscriptions are positioned, and how gaming communities grow across Apple devices. At the ai world organisation, we track these shifts closely because they influence how AI-driven marketing, personalization, and content ecosystems evolve across global tech platforms, and those insights frequently show up in discussions at the ai world summit and other ai world organisation events and ai conferences by ai world.

A broader mandate across Apple’s gaming and app ecosystem

Singh’s new role covers international marketing for three closely connected surfaces: the App Store, Apple Arcade, and the Apple Games app. While each has its own audience and purpose, together they represent Apple’s “front door” to app discovery and a growing hub for gaming experiences across Apple services.

Apple has been building the Apple Games app as a unified destination where players can return to favorites, discover new games, and engage socially with friends. Apple has also described the Games app as a place to track what’s happening across games—including events and updates—so players don’t miss moments that drive engagement. From a marketing standpoint, that kind of centralized hub changes the playbook: it encourages campaigns that connect gameplay, community, and ongoing updates rather than one-time installs.

For Apple Arcade specifically, Apple’s own positioning emphasizes that the Apple Games app brings App Store and Apple Arcade games together “in one place,” along with personalized recommendations and social play features. Apple’s user guidance likewise frames Apple Games as a “central hub” that consolidates a player’s library, activity, friend signals, and recommendations in one convenient space. For marketers, this creates an environment where messaging has to be consistent across touchpoints—because the user is not bouncing between isolated products; they’re navigating a connected experience.

In addition, Apple’s developer documentation introduces the Apple Games app as an “all-in-one gaming destination” where players can explore what’s happening across their games, discover new ones, and play with friends. It also highlights how Game Center features—like achievements and leaderboards—tie into discovery and social recommendations within the Games app and the App Store. In practical terms, this means international marketing leadership in this space needs to understand not only storytelling and brand strategy, but also the mechanics of ecosystem growth: retention loops, social sharing, store visibility, and partner enablement.

From Southeast Asia services marketing to international scope

Singh has been with Apple for nearly seven years and, before this elevation, led marketing for content and services across Southeast Asia. In that role, his responsibilities spanned a range of services—including Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, Apple Fitness+, and the App Store—covering consumer growth as well as regional launches. That experience is a strong foundation for an international marketing role because services marketing requires balancing global brand consistency with local cultural nuance, language, media habits, and market-level regulations.

During his Apple tenure, Singh has also contributed to the international marketing strategy for the App Store and Apple Arcade. He has additionally worked on newer initiatives such as the Apple Games app, which brings gaming experiences together across Apple’s services ecosystem. With the Games app increasingly positioned as a personalized destination for players—and a discovery engine for developers—this portfolio sits at the intersection of consumer marketing and platform economics.

Singh publicly shared the move on LinkedIn, indicating he was starting the new position as Head of International Marketing for the App Store, Apple Arcade, and the Games app at Apple. While leadership announcements on professional platforms can be brief, the scope described is significant: App Store marketing touches developers, users, policy realities, and evolving platform narratives across multiple regions. It’s also a role that needs to harmonize marketing across different types of value: free apps, paid apps, subscriptions, and a premium gaming subscription offering via Apple Arcade.

From the perspective of the ai world organisation, this kind of role expansion is a useful signal for how global tech companies are consolidating “experience marketing” across interconnected products. In many industries, marketing is no longer a last-mile communications function; it is increasingly a growth architecture function—where product surfaces, social features, recommendations, and partner ecosystems all influence outcomes. That same theme shows up repeatedly in discussions among leaders at the ai world summit and across ai world organisation events focused on real-world adoption and measurable impact.

Agency leadership and platform-side strategy experience

Before joining Apple, Singh held senior strategy and digital leadership roles at Publicis Groupe and Falcon Agency in Singapore. His earlier career included stints across Ogilvy, Lazada, Rocket Internet and IDC, spanning digital marketing, social media, content strategy, and market analysis functions. That mix—agency rigor plus platform-side execution—often produces leaders who can translate between creative storytelling and operational performance metrics.

Other industry reporting also describes Singh’s earlier background as moving from market analysis into content strategy roles, later taking on digital marketing responsibilities, and subsequently stepping into senior leadership on the agency side. This type of path matters in a global marketing leadership role because international marketing is rarely about “one perfect campaign”; it’s about building repeatable systems: templates that scale, consistent measurement, and partner alignment across time zones and market realities.

In modern platform marketing, especially around apps and games, leadership must coordinate with product teams, developer relations, partnership teams, and regional marketing leads—often simultaneously. Apple’s Games app story itself is built around personalization, discovery, and social play, which are all areas where strong strategy, analytics, and creative execution have to work together rather than operate in silos. When a marketing leader has lived inside both agency environments and platform environments, they’re often better equipped to manage these cross-functional pressures without losing clarity on the end-user experience.

This is also why, at the ai world organisation, we emphasize cross-disciplinary marketing leadership in our programming and community conversations. Whether the context is app discovery or enterprise adoption, the common thread is the same: leaders need to connect data, creativity, and product reality to build trust and sustained engagement. That’s one reason the ai world summit (including ai world summit 2025 / 2026 editions) frequently draws attention from marketing, product, and growth stakeholders who want to understand what changes in platforms mean for strategy.

Why this move matters for the App Store, Apple Arcade, and Apple Games

The App Store continues to be central to Apple’s ecosystem, serving as the primary marketplace where users discover and download apps and games. Apple Arcade is a subscription gaming service that sits alongside the broader App Store ecosystem, and Apple’s own Arcade pages now frame the Apple Games app as the “new destination” that brings App Store and Arcade games into one place, with recommendations and social engagement features. The Apple Games app, as introduced by Apple, is designed to help players jump back into games they love, find new favorites, and have more fun with friends, including features that turn even single-player experiences into shared moments.

From a marketing perspective, this convergence implies three big shifts. First, discovery becomes more continuous: players and app users are not only being acquired; they are being re-engaged through updates, events, and social signals that keep them returning. Second, personalization becomes more visible: Apple has positioned the Games app around personalized recommendations and friend-driven signals, which means marketing narratives will increasingly align with “what you like” and “what your friends are playing,” not just broad demographic targeting. Third, the ecosystem story becomes more unified: the language on Apple’s side consistently emphasizes “one place,” “central hub,” and connected experiences across devices.

For developers and studios, this can influence how they plan launch calendars, updates, and community moments. Apple’s developer guidance points to discovery and social recommendations tied to Game Center features, suggesting that community-oriented design elements can play a role in visibility. For marketers, it creates an environment where the best results often come from coordination: product updates timed with marketing beats, community engagement paired with store assets, and localized storytelling that still feels coherent under a single global brand.

For the wider tech and business community, the appointment highlights how seriously Apple is treating the marketing layer of its services ecosystem. It is not simply about promoting a product; it is about shaping how users experience a multi-surface journey—from discovering a game, to subscribing, to engaging socially, to returning for events and updates. As AI personalization becomes more common across consumer platforms, marketers also face tougher expectations around relevance, transparency, and user trust—topics that are increasingly central in leadership circles and that the ai world organisation regularly explores through the ai world summit and related ai conferences by ai world.

The AI World Organisation perspective for 2026

As someone working at the ai world organisation, you can position this update as a real-world example of how global technology companies are reorganizing leadership around ecosystems—not standalone products. In 2026, “international marketing” increasingly means orchestrating narratives across multiple surfaces, aligning partner ecosystems, and planning for personalization-driven discovery that changes how campaigns perform across regions. That makes this Apple leadership move timely for marketing leaders, founders, and product teams preparing for the next cycle of platform-driven growth.

If you’re shaping this story for your audience, you can connect it to the practical questions leaders ask at the ai world summit: how do platforms influence user acquisition costs, retention, and long-term brand trust, and how does AI reshape personalization, segmentation, and measurement across markets. You can also use this as a bridge to ai world organisation events by highlighting that global executive moves often reveal where investment is going—gaming, apps, discovery, and engagement—which are critical themes for anyone building or marketing digital products today. And because the discussion spans both consumer experiences and developer ecosystems, it fits naturally with broader conversations in AI, growth strategy, and digital transformation—exactly the kind of cross-functional territory where ai conferences by ai world aim to add value.