China Mobile apps users approach 1 million

China Mobile has revealed that its four-and-a-half month old app store Mobile Market had amassed almost 1 million registered users at the end of December. 

 

The operator late last week revealed that Mobile Market’s 960,000 registered users had racked up just over 2 million downloads by year-end. The application outlet, which launched on August 17, boasts 29,000 developers.

 

The success of China Mobile’s app store is crucial in its battle against W-CDMA operator China Unicom which has reportedly sold more than 300,000 iPhone devices.

 

Meanwhile, China Mobile has hit its revised year-end 3G subscriber target of 5 million customers. The operator disclosed last week that its TD-SCDMA subscribers surpassed the 5 million mark by end-December.

 

But the number is well short of China Mobile’s July 2009 goal of reaching 10 million 3G users by end-2009, an unrealistic target that was subsequently revised by the firm.

 

In early December, China Mobile chairman & chief executive officer, Wang Jianzhou said a key impediment to mass consumer take-up of the TD-SCDMA service, which launched in April 2008, was a lack of low-end devices.

 

“We still need more low priced 3G terminals,” Wang told delegates at the Mobile Asia Congress conference in Hong Kong.