Start-up MobileApps.com is calling on developers to add their apps to its cross-platform mobile app marketplace ahead of its launch in a month’s time. Features of the wholesale marketplace, which is currently in private beta, include the fact that it will only charge developers a 5 percent fee (for admin and credit card charges) compared to the 30 percent that is standard with other app stores. The new marketplace will also offer developers an app discovery solution so that users can more easily find their apps. “Apps are cluttered out in app stores and developers face a huge challenge getting their apps discovered,” Alvin Koay, the CEO and founder of MobileApps.com, told Mobile Apps Briefing. In addition, the market’s app advertising widgets will enable developers to promote their apps to targeted users. Developers bid to appear on slots in the widgets which are placed on relevant websites by MobileApps.com.

The new marketplace also aims to overcome some of the current limitations with Android Market which include the lack of an app discovery website accessible from the desktop, the lack of universal availability for many Android apps and restrictions on the use of Google Checkout in many countries.

In the future, the firm plans to introduce “an app recommendation engine to power our marketplace based on Artificial Intelligence and user profiling”. It will likely cheer developers even more with a second suggestion that it intends to push their returns even higher than 95 percent by negotiating better deals with mobile operators (for carrier billing) and with payment solution providers. The company also wants to expand its audience (and indirectly that of developers) by opening localised app stores under its own brand in local languages. An Arabic language store is coming soon with a Jordanian partner.

For all its ambitious plans, MobileApps.com describes itself as “a self-funded bootstrapped startup”. Incorporated in Singapore, it has five founders. “Four are friends of more than 25 years,” says Koay. “We are operating from the holiday island of Penang, Malaysia, just to save cost and grow our startup,” he adds.