China Mobile – the world’s largest mobile operator by subscribers – is seeking a minimum 50 percent cut of all sales from its soon-to-be-launched Mobile Market application store, according to a Telecom Asia report. If true, the proportion offered to developers (50 percent) would be lower than that offered by other high-profile application stores from the likes of Apple, Google, Nokia and Microsoft, which offer developers a 70 percent cut (with the store owners taking only a 30 percent share).

In February, Mobile Business Briefing revealed details of China Mobile’s plan to launch its own application store. “We have initiated the construction of Mobile Market, and plan to launch it in two phases within the year,” Wang Jianzhou, chairman and CEO of China Mobile, said at the time. “Our major purpose is to gather the application developers via this developer community, better leverage resources of terminal vendors, and provide the users with abundant and high-quality applications that are easy to download, use and pay for.” The Telecom Asia report speculates that the store is likely to go live in September, which would probably make it the world’s first carrier-operated application store. Vodafone has announced plans to open its own store, though it has not specified the share of revenue that it will pass on to developers.