Telefonica Launches Own App Store

­Telefonica has launched its own app store - the mstore - which will offer a catalogue of more than one thousand mobile applications. The shop will be universal and open to all types of customers.

The new store will form part of a global project that will eventually reach Telefonica's more than 200 million mobile customers around the world, although the initial phase will consist of a local launch that will benefit almost 10 million Movistar customers in Spain.

Guillermo Ansaldo, Chairman of Telefonica España, remarked that "mstore is part of Telefonica's strategy to bring mobile broadband to our customers, by complementing the value of data flat rate and giving customers quick access to a new world of applications for entertainment, lifestyle and utilities".

The store will be launching with more than 1,000 applications, which have been classified into 14 categories: Games, Dictionaries, Entertainment, Finance, Health, GPS-Maps, Information, Photos and Videos, Social Networks, Travel and Books, Sports, Shopping, Tools and Education/Children.

Programmes cost anywhere between 0.49 euros and 19.99 euros (not including sales tax), although around 10% of them are free of charge.

The new mstore will be accessible from the movistar emoción portal, and new handsets sold by movistar will give access through an icon on the mobile's own menu.

Posted to the site on 10th September 2009