China Mobile to reward software developers for popular downloads
Shanghai. October 12. INTERFAX-CHINA - China Mobile Communications Corp. (China Mobile) announced on Oct.11 a reward scheme for software developers that produce applications for Mobile Market, its online application store.
The telecom operator will offer a reward of up to RMB 50,000 ($7,319) to individual developers that produce an application that generates 50,000 downloads after being uploaded to Mobile Market. Meanwhile, corporate developers will receive a reward of up to RMB 100,000 ($14,637) for 100,000 application downloads, according to the announcement.
However, some software developers told Interfax that the reward amount is insufficient if China Mobile charges a fee for the content. "The only way for software developers to generate the high number of required downloads is to make the software free of charge to mobile phone users, as Mobile Market is still relatively unknown to Chinese consumers. Furthermore, the reward is not enough to cover the costs of software development," a Shanghai-based software developer, who wished to remain anonymous, told Interfax.
Mobile Market was launched by China Mobile on Aug. 21, and currently has 191 software applications, 438 mobile games and 1,054 mobile phone themes available for free.
Meanwhile, the online application stores of China Mobile's two competitors, China United Network Communications Group Co. Ltd. (China Unicom) and China Telecommunications Corp. (China Telecom), are making slightly slower progress, Interfax previously reported.
China Telecom started beta testing of its online application store on Sept.1, and will start commercial operations by the end of this year, while China Unicom has just started a trial platform and a final version has yet to be confirmed.
-HJL