Goes for Asia first

Jul 13, 2009 10:43 GMT  ·  By
The LG Application Store will kick off in Asia on Tuesday, should reach Europe by year's end
   The LG Application Store will kick off in Asia on Tuesday, should reach Europe by year's end

South Korean mobile phone maker LG Electronics is the latest cell phone manufacturer to come aboard the application storefront vessel. According to the latest news around the Web, the company is getting ready to bring its software solution portal live on Tuesday, with a great focus on the Asian market, at least at the beginning.

The latest trend in the mobile phone industry drove a wide range of manufacturers towards releasing their own branded app stores, and LG joins the move, following companies like Apple, Research In Motion, Samsung, Nokia or Palm, with the release of some parts of its portal in South Korea last month, and with the broadening of the portal's availability to more Asian markets this Tuesday.

According to the company, the store is expected to become available all around the world by the end of the ongoing year, and follows the previously made announcement regarding the release of a number of 80 mobile phones this year, 12 of which should be smartphones. Although both LG and the co-national phone maker Samsung have been rather reluctant regarding the idea of releasing software portals, both of them joined the line of other companies making the move, and they seem determined to catch up with those that have already had their stores up and running for a long time now.

LG's storefront will be called the “LG Application Store” and is expected to come live with a number of 1,400 applications, 100 of which should be free. Moreover, the app store will also come in five languages, while being available now in Singapore, Malaysia and Australia. Before the ongoing year is over, the company plans to launch it in Europe and South America, while the applications available with the portal should top 2,000, Reuters says. For the time being, the company does not plan to introduce the app portal in the US, it seems.