Appcity.com has launched its app store of the same name, though its claim to be the “first global online store for mobile applications” may ruffle a few feathers at GetJar, not to mention Apple, Google and almost everyone else with an app store.
The store offers more than 225,000 apps for iPhone, Android, Nokia Ovi, BlackBerry, and Windows Mobile smartphones. It is initially available in English and French, with Spanish and Chinese language versions due to launch by the end of the summer. That’s also the due date for a fully functional version of the store for N. American users. Until then, the site’s search engine will merely enable them to discover apps, and then point them to the relevant app store to buy them.
The most intresting point abou the store is its combined ad-supported and subscription-based business model. To use the store, you need to pay a weekly €5 subscrption. But having done so, you can then download any app you can find, including ones costing several times that. The company says that the subscription will offset the price of any high-priced apps that users download over time. It adds that it plans to develop vertical mobile app stores for brands, media companies and mobile carriers, and create a broader destination for app developers.
Appcity.com was founded by its CEO Paul Amsellem, who founded Phonevalley, France’s first SMS provider, and Cellcast-Interactif, which was sold to Silverback Media, recently rebranded as Adenyo, where he developed mobile marketing campaigns for leading European brands, including Nokia, Canal+, and Sony Ericsson, among others.
Amsellem is also the co-founder of the French Mobile Marketing Association, and the author of Mobile Marketing Essentials, Strategy & Best Practices. He says: “The smartphone revolution has reached a tipping point where mobile apps will increasingly drive consumer, and business, adoption of emerging mobile platforms and devices, and AppCity.com can deliver a true global store for the latest apps, from medical information and sports to business and entertainment. “Just as mobile carriers evolved from minute-based pricing to monthly voice plans, we can see a trend toward unlimited app plans, and AppCity.com will be the first global provider of multi-platform apps.”