China Unicom Launches ‘WoStore’

China Unicom has launched a long-expected application store for users to download apps like games and Internet browsers to their mobile devices, making it the latest mobile carrier looking to reproduce the success of Apple’s App Store.

Mobile carriers, especially, are building their own takes on the App Store as they look for sources of revenue besides providing simple data connections, a business where tough competition drives down margins. Many carriers want to control their own download stores in addition to any offered by the makers of their customers’ handsets.

ZTE, a Chinese maker of telecommunications equipment and mobile phones, said this week it helped build the application service – called the WoStore – and that it will support “all open smartphone platforms” except the iPhone, as well as devices like tablets.

That suggests the Unicom store won’t compete directly with Apple’s App Store in selling downloads to iPhone users, a key source of subscribers for China Unicom’s 3G mobile services, which are more expensive than 2G services but offer faster data speeds.

The new store could still conceivably boost the attractiveness of handsets besides the iPhone for China Unicom customers, but if that’s the case it has a long way to go. China Unicom said the store currently has about 2,200 apps. By contrast, Apple in January said its App Store had surpassed 3 billion downloads.

China Unicom’s store will also compete with the reasonably successful Mobile Market from rival China Mobile, and with stores from other handset makers including Motorola, whose Shop4Apps store has fared well in China. Apple also has launched a simplified-Chinese version of its App Store.

Both China Unicom and China Mobile have long offered downloads of items like ringtones and handset wallpapers, and those value-added services have produced a good deal of revenue, said Dave Carini of Maverick China Research.

But that doesn’t necessarily give their newer application stores a leg up on the competition. The state-owned Chinese carriers are often slow to react to consumer demand, and have to cope with government censorship requirements and other regulations.

“You’re going to have more, heavier oversight by the operators here,” said Carini. “Since the application market is not as open, it’s going to develop more slowly.”

China Unicom’s store is named after its “Wo” (meaning “fertile” or “rich”) brand of mobile services.