NTT Docomo and Orange announced plans to “commercialise Tizen devices in the second half of 2013”, with handset number one Samsung confirming that it plans to offer smartphones powered by the OS this year.

In a statement, the Tizen Association said that Samsung has been working with operators and content partners in launch territories, in order to offer “a combination of global and local content in each market”.

Noting that 250 partners and ecosystem players had gathered in Barcelona, the Tizen Association also said that executives from NTT Docomo, Orange and Samsung, as well as Huawei and Intel, had highlighted “the value of an open ecosystem”, and the importance of “customer choice and delivering valuable services to consumers”.

Earlier this month, the Tizen 2.0 Magnolia SDK and source code was released to developers, operators and OEMs. This was said to “represent a major milestone”, and include “many new features and improvements over previous versions”.

And as part of the Tizen Association’s focus on the ecosystem, it said that a Tizen Store will launch later this year with thousands of apps, “allowing developers to monetise their work and creating a robust ecosystem”.

“We are very excited about the new experience and openness of Tizen that will be brought to consumers this year. We will remain committed to open source based innovation and open to collaboration with the broader industry participants,” said Hankil Yoon, SVP at Samsung, and co-vice chairman of the Tizen Association.