China’s Taobao.com Launches App Store

Chinese Internet shopping website Taobao.com has launched an application store under the domain App.taobao.com.

According to the company, the application store is currently undergoing internal beta tests and nearly 1,000 application products have been submitted to the store by developers.

A representative from the application store said that, for the first phase, they will only include Android applications. So far, about 100 million users reportedly use Taobao.com via smartphones, of which over 60 million are Android users. Taobao.com’s new application store aims to provide users with one-stop solutions covering Internet shopping and application download.

Users can visit Taobao’s application store via its website Taobao.com, mobile phone portal M.taobao.com or Taobao’s Android client. This application store will provide free-of-charge display opportunities for newly published applications. If developers have good activity plans, the application store can also jointly hold these activities.

With the development of smartphone industry, application store has become an important channel to conquer the mobile Internet market in China. Several Chinese Internet giants such as Baidu, Tencent, and NetEase have already entered the business.