China Mobile launches preview of mobile application store

Here’s another quick story that caught our attention from China, along with the Ericsson piece from earlier. China Mobile has apparently launched a preview version of an upcoming mobile application store today.

Mobile Market was launched in preview form today - at least, we hope it’s preview form. The download links don’t work yet, but a spokeswoman said the store wouldn’t officially open until September.

The app store will be split into familiar categories: games, videos, music, software and themes.

Check it out the on-line preview yourself: http://www.mmarket.com/

The story comes via PC World - which also reports that local media have been reporting on the China Mobile business model. Apparently China Mobile plans to yoink 50% of the revenue from sales. That’s excessively harsh, even compared to other app stores. Apple has been criticised for its 30% revenue share.

What we think?

The preview for the site looks good - I particularly like a side bar that runs down the left hand side:

It looks like Mobile Market intends to integrate searchs of other mobile app stores - there’s a cool idea. It’s also the kind of thing that only an app store from an operator could offer consumers. App stores connected to a particular platfrom, like BlackBerry App World or the iPhone App Store, can’t touch that kind of service.