Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd (遠傳電信), the nation’s third-biggest telecom carrier, said yesterday it was in talks with China Mobile Ltd (中國移動) to sell mobile applications over Android phones including those running Ophone, an operating system developed by the Beijing-based telecom operator.
Should the talks prove successful it would be a crucial step for Far EasTone in selling its application store service overseas, especially in the huge Chinese market.
Last August, China Mobile launched an online application store, dubbed Mobile Market, for subscribers to download software and applications over mobile phones powered by different operating systems such as Microsoft Corp’s Windows and the Nokia-backed Symbian system.
“China Mobile’s next step is to offer applications for its Android phone users,” said Roger Chen (陳立人), a vice president of Far EasTone, which launched its app store, or S Mart, initially for Android phones, in October.
“We are discussing possible business models [with China Mobile],” Chen said. “We will discuss more details in May.”
Far EasTone vice chairman Jan Nilsson told investors earlier this year that the firm planned to sell mobile applications offered on S Mart in China by the year’s end.
There are about 200 applications for sale on S Mart. The number of downloads has reached 150,000 and the firm aims to boost this figure to 150 million in the next three years.
Bill Huang (黃曉慶), general manager of China Mobile Research Institute (中國移動通信研究院), said the company may exchange its applications for those sold on Far EasTone’s S Mart in future.
Huang spoke about the company’s “strategies to promote applications in the mobile Internet era”, during S Mart Development Day arranged by Far EasTone in Taipei yesterday.
China Mobile had 533 million mobile subscribers as of the end of February, according to the company’s Web site.
Huang said it was becoming important to develop applications for mobile users in collaboration with partners as rapid uptake of smartphones helped increase handset users’ appetites for more applications.
This year, 35 Ophones will hit the stores, compared with eight models last year, Huang said. The first Ophone hit the market in September, to compete with smartphones developed by Apple Inc and giant Google Inc.
In China, shipments of smartphones are expected to reach 93 million units in 2013, making up about 40 percent of overall mobile phone shipments of 232 million units, Huang said. By that time, revenues from downloading applications from mobile phones would amount to more than 10 billion yuan (NT$46 billion), making mobile application a mainstay service, he said.
Foreseeing this trend, Far EasTone led local rivals in launching its app store service, S Mart, late last year and planned to sell the service overseas.
Before entering the Chinese market, Far EasTone expected to sell applications developed by its partners in Southeast Asia by the end of the next quarter, Chen said.
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