RCom to tie up with US giant for application store

India’s third largest network service provider, Reliance Communications (RCom), is close to signing an agreement with US-based GetJar to launch its own application store (app store, software modules to run specific tasks on own mobiles), sources said.

When asked, a Reliance spokesperson confirmed this development. The company had announced in February that it would be launching its own app store.

GetJar is the world’s largest cross-platform app store, with over a half billion downloads till date. The company provides more than 50,000 mobile applications across all major handsets and platforms to consumers in 200 countries. In addition to distributing content directly to consumers, GetJar also works with a select number of distribution partners, including but not limited to Sony Ericsson, Sprint, Opera, Vodafone, 3UK and Virgin Mobile.

This agreement with GetJar would allow RCom to offer a choice of over 60,000 mobile applications. These applications, which pan across both GSM and CDMA services of the company, can be accessed across a wide range of mobile phones, sources say. Customers will be charged 50p per MB usage for the application store service.

The app store of Reliance will be integrated with R-World, the company’s value added services platform. The company currently has over 10 million monthly users for its R-World services and this app store launch is expected to help increase this volume.

The app store is a concept introduced by Apple. It allows consumers to browse and download various applications for both entertainment and commerce. After the popularisation of this concept, many service providers launched their own products.

Bharti Airtel was the first service provider in India to launch its app store in February, this year and has registered around five million application downloads. Vodafone, too, launched its application store in quick succession and has registered more than half a million downloads.

Entertainment-based applications are more popular with Indian consumers than utility-based applications, which include mobile-based commercial transactions. About 60 per cent of Reliance’s applications are dedicated for entertainment, while 40 per cent are for utility-based services.