The Wholesale Application Community (WAC) kicked off commercial operations Monday with eight operators, 12,000 apps and a software upgrade.
China Mobile, MTS, Orange, Smart Communications, Telefonica, Telenor, Verizon and Vodafone are now connected to the WAC platform, covering an addressable vase of 1.6 billion mobile users, said WAC chief executive Peters Suh.
Suh said another eight operators will connect to the platform in 2011.
Michel Combes, CEO of Vodafone Europe, confirmed that the WAC launch applied to all of the markets in which Vodafone operates.
“Just as mobile number portability has been beneficial to customers and driven competition between operators, we need to have ecosystem portability,” Combes said at a WAC press conference at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “Why should I have to think about whether the device in my hands can make or receive a video call, or supports Angry Birds?”
South Korean incumbent telco KT announced support for the WAC platform at the press conference.
“We will provide WAC through our storefront, which will allow us to provide good value and a good user experience to our customers,” said Hyun-Myung Pyo, President of KT’s Mobile Business Group a Board member of WAC. “In Korea, we are working together to ensure that operators and OEMs are working together on this.”