China Mobile to open online app store soon -source

SHANGHAI Aug 12 (Reuters) - China Mobile (0941.HK), China's leading mobile telecoms provider, will launch an online mobile phone applications store soon to tap into the segment's rapid growth, a company source said on Wednesday.

The company's Mobile Market store, www.mmarket.com, will be open to developers to create games and other mobile phone applications and will only be available for download by existing China Mobile subscribers, the source said.

"The idea of Mobile Market is to be a supermarket for phone apps," said the source, who gave no date for the launch but said it was imminent, adding it would definitely be no later than the end of the year.

China Mobile, the world's largest mobile carrier by number of users, dominates China's cellular market with a two-thirds share. The firm will charge developers a small listing fee.

China Mobile has said it was actively preparing a site to sell mobile phone applications but declined to give further details.

China Mobile competes with China Unicom (0762.HK) and China Telecom (0728.HK) in an increasingly saturated and competitive market. (Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Edmund Klamann)