South Korean operator SK Telecom (SKT) announced a deal which will see its T Store content and apps sold in a “shop within a shop” within Mobile Market, the app store of China Mobile, the world’s largest mobile operator. In a statement, SKT said that it is also planning to enter the Japanese market with T Store, and will open a Global Distribution Centre (GDC), to “actively help developers enter overseas markets.” Lee Joo-Sik, EVP and head of the operator’s New Business Division, said: “SK Telecom’s partnership with China Mobile will serve as an opportunity to accelerate the global expansion of the T Store platform. SKT will continue to make multifaceted efforts to enlarge T Store’s mobile ecosystem so that Korean developers can successfully make inroads into the global market.”

SKT has signed a memorandum of understanding with China Mobile to cooperate in promoting mobile content exchanges and building an ecosystem. It will provide T Store content to China Mobile’s 600 million customers from July 2011, a move it said “is expected to create valuable opportunities for application developers in Korea.” It also said that it will “promote further discussions with China Mobile to enable the distribution of massive amount of applications by operating a separate server for T Store and to provide mobile advertising services.”

The company also announced plans to launch a localised version of T Store for the Japanese market from September 2011, which it has “tentatively named J Store.” Content, applications and user interface will be localised and optimised to meet the needs and preferences of Japanese customers. It is intending to sell apps across mobile operators and, “to this end, the company is in talks with Japanese handset and content distributors on issues regarding the application store’s marketing and operation as well as the creation of an ecosystem.”

SKT’s GDC will be opened next month, with the intention “to help developers enter and succeed in overseas markets by resolving their main obstacles and difficulties including language difference, copyright infringement and unclear settlement system.” Although it is already offering translation and settlement services for developers, it has decided to open the GDC to offer “a more professional and comprehensive service, which was driven by the accelerated pace of export of the T Store platform.”