China’s second-largest mobile operator, China Unicom, plans to commercially launch its application store next month. Formerly known as the Unistore, the commercial version will reportedly be branded the Wostore when it goes live in November. China Unicom could take the opportunity of the GSMA’s Mobile Asia Congress (November 17-18) for a formal launch. It has been offering a beta version of the store (with over 2,000 applications) since February, with support for platforms such as Symbian, Windows and Android.

China Unicom is coming relatively late to the app store battle. Several leading handset vendors such as Motorola have already targeted the Chinese market with stores, as has China Unicom’s smaller rival China Telecom. But the real threat is China Mobile, the country’s dominant mobile operator which had signed up over 50,000 developers by end-June of this year. Its Mobile Market boasts over 20,000 applications and has enjoyed over 25 million downloads since its launch last year. By comparison China Telecom is smaller prey and a more reasonable target for China Unicom to catch. China Telecom’s E-Surfing Space App Market, which launched in March this year, offers more than 4,000 apps and has 12,000 registered developers. The store has reached nearly 500,000 users and aims to reach one million by year-end. Total monthly downloads have hit almost 1 million.

The launch of China Unicom’s new store follows its big push into the smartphone market. The operator is usually associated with the Apple iPhone but is also making an effort with other vendors too, including RIM. Historically, the BlackBerry has had a relatively low profile in China but this has started to change this year.