Taiwan Mobile Co (台灣大哥大) yesterday launched an online application store for its smartphone users.
Taiwan Mobile is the second local phone company providing online software downloading services mostly free, following similar steps by their global peers and local rival Far EasTone Telecommunications Co Ltd (遠傳電信) after the success of Apple Inc’s App Store.
“We are re-packaging our products, which were originally offered on feature phones, for smartphone users, which are growing swiftly,” deputy chief operating officer Jeff Ku (谷元宏) said.
Taiwan Mobile has about 140,000 smartphone users, including those who use iPhones, Research In Motion’s Blackberry phones and HTC Corp’s (宏達電) range of smartphones.
“We hope to see a notable contribution from the app store, match Market, at the end of the year,” Ku said.
The telecoms operator said it planned to increase the number of applications available to about 500 by the end of the year, from 120, and it hopes to boost downloads to 600,000 by that time.
That would help the firm increase its data revenues by more than 20 percent, Ku said.
At the end of last year, data services accounted for about 12.5 percent of the company’s telecoms revenues, he said.
The firm currently only sells applications to its subscribers, but it plans to make it available to all.
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