After receiving lukewarm reception for its app store in South Korea, SK Telecom has begun a track to seek success beyond domestic shores.
The operator has announced that a localized version of its app store, dubbed T Store, will be available to users of Android-based smartphones in Taiwan from June this year.
The carrier has partnered with Taiwanese mobile device supplier East Power, in a move that will see T Store pre-installed on all compatible handsets sold through its national retail network, regardless of carrier.
SK Telecom said in a press statement that it hoped the localized content in the Taiwanese version of T Store would be helpful for expanding its reach to other Mandarin speaking countries in the region, such as China.
The operator had signed an MOU in November last year to pre-install T-Store on Lenovo smartphones. The operator had said the partnership with Lenovo aimed to leverage the popularity of Korean products in the Chinese market.
It remains to be seen if T Store will make a significant impact in the Taiwanese and Chinese markets. According to a survey conducted by IResearch last year, China’s app store market is currently dominated by Nokia’s Ovi store with 65.2% market share, followed by China Mobile’s app store (57.7%). The Android market came in a distant third, with 13.7%.