China Mobile to launch China's first app store

China Mobile announced at the Mobile World Congress in February that it would create it own store to give Chinese customers a chance to develop and download apps in the months after telecoms providers were awarded 3G licences.

According to local reports, the platform was constructed by a local data service provider and China Mobile Guangdong, and will include software for games, music and video.

The market will also allow users to download apps and develop software for other users. It gives China Mobile the means to sell developers’ apps for a shared profit.

Reports add that the technology will not be compatible with the application software of iPhones, which will be distributed by rival China Unicom.

China Mobile is poised to rival the app stores set up by Windows Mobile, Apple, Google, Research in Motion and Nokia.

Meiqin Fang, associate director of BDA China, said China Mobile’s ability to launch an app store before rival networks not only draws smartphone customers looking to sign up with the network that will provide them with the most services, but it will attract developers.

“The Mobile Market will give 70 per cent of revenue from application downloads to the developers – this is high compared to what developers were given by 2G networks, which came in at around 50 to 70 per cent revenue,” Fang said.

Fang adds that China Mobile, the leader in China with as much as 70 per cent market share, was able to launch its app store first because “it has more capital investments and resources than China Telecom and China Unicom, it has a much larger user base and has a much stronger brand image that makes people want to use the network”.

Although China Mobile will host phones that use Google Android,  Fang said China Mobile’s app store will likely not compete directly with the Android Market when it launches in China because the Mobile Market’s software will be embedded in China Mobile’s phones.

“China Mobile would likely install its own Mobile Market on its phones and maybe strike up some sort of co-operation with Google,” Fang suggested.

Bruno Bensaid, MD at Shanghaivest Ltd and founder of the Shanghai chapter of MobileMonday, said this sort of service was needed in China. “I believe there is a great demand for this, because Chinese high-end mobile users are educated on iPhone (more than three million units sold illegally in China) and are ready to download apps provided a good user interface and a good app store similar to iTunes. But they do not necessarily want an iPhone, as some of its features are sometimes poor, such as camera and video.”