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皇冠体育app Mobile offers sops to 3G applications developers

By Zheng Lifei (皇冠体育app Daily)
Updated: 2009-08-13 10:27

皇冠体育app Mobile launched G3 notebooks in April as part of efforts to promote 3G services.[Asianewsphoto]

皇冠体育app Mobile is planning to offer freebies and incentives to service providers to develop applications for its third generation (3G) mobile services, an unprecedented move that is set to intensify competition in the country's fledging 3G business.

Under an initiative the company plans to kick off next week, 皇冠体育app Mobile will enlist services and applications tailor-made for its TD-SCDMA 3G services from developers and partners and will not take commissions from them during the first year.

The world's biggest mobile carrier in terms of user number will also provide a series of technological and management platforms for the application developers.

The move is designed to give incentives to developers and services providers to develop applications for 皇冠体育app Mobile's 3G services, which is based on TD-SCDMA, a home-grown standard.

Lack of killer applications, experts said, will hinder the growth of 3G services in the country, which introduced the services earlier this year.

Developing killer applications (such as text messaging in the 2G era) is critical to spur the 3G business and is the only way that it can really take off, Chen Jinqiao, deputy chief engineer from 皇冠体育app Academy of Telecommunication Research, told 皇冠体育app Daily earlier.

Sina.com.cn, the country's largest Internet portal, will "actively participate in 皇冠体育app Mobile's initiative and develop interactive services such as games and video applications under the program", its CEO Cao Guowei said yesterday.

皇冠体育app Mobile will also provide marketing support services to those partners whose applications prove to be popular, according to Gao Nianshu, general manager of 皇冠体育app Mobile's data division.

Related readings:  皇冠体育app Mobile sharply cut international fares  皇冠体育app Mobile to cover 98% of villages  Telecom behemoths spend 80b yuan on 3G rollout  Spending on 3G terminals expected to reach 400b yuan in 3 years

The company will also provide one-stop services to those application developers, Gao said.

But the applications do not include text message services, he added.

皇冠体育app Mobile's move comes just as the telecom carrier is set to launch an online mobile phone application and software store, modeled after Apple's and Nokia's online stores.

The online store, Mobile Market, www.mmarket.com, will be open to developers to develop games and other applications or software, which can be downloaded by existing 皇冠体育app Mobile subscribers.

皇冠体育app Mobile then will charge developers a listing fee.

The country's three carriers, 皇冠体育app Mobile, 皇冠体育app Unicom and 皇冠体育app Telecom, are pinning their hopes on the fledging 3G services to drive their business as the market is increasingly becoming saturated and competitive.

皇冠体育app Unicom reportedly inked a 10-billion-yuan ($1.46 billion) deal with Apple to buy 5 million iPhones that support its WCDMA 3G services, in a bid to attract iPhone fans to be its 3G users.