Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications India’s top Telecom service providers plans to launch online mobile applications stores, opening up a new revenue stream from add-on services such as music and social networking.

Bharti Airtel app store is set to go live on Wednesday (February 10) with 1,250 applications across 25 categories including games, books and social networking on its applications store making it the first Indian telco to attempt replicating the highly successful business model of Apple, the pioneer in this space.

Reliance Communications said the first version of its applications store would go live for GSM customers by the end of February, and by the end of March an expanded version would be available to its CDMA customers as well.

Mobile apps have been a rave globally ever since Apple launched its App Store in 2008. Phone makers, operators and technology firms including Nokia, Research In Motion, Vodafone and Microsoft Corp have also sought a piece of the pie.

In January, Aircel, which is majority-owned by Malaysia’s Maxis, was the first Indian operator to announce a mobile applications store, when it signed a deal with No. 2 software services firm Infosys Technologies.




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