The Samsung Application Store was already available in the UK, France and Italy, but now Samsung announced its launch in Germany and Singapore. End of this month Brazil and China will also be added to the supported countries list.

Samsung Application Store - Countries

The store has been available since September last year and now offers 549 applications. From mid-February, Samsung phones in Singapore and Germany will be shipped with the Application Store pre-installed. Samsung is also launching a new software suite, called Kies, which allows users to search and download applications directly from their PC. The applications are then installed onto their mobile device when synced with the PC.

The Samsung Application Store now supports three phone models, with more to come. We have updated appstores.info with the information above.

Like announced earlier, Samsung just launched its Application Store. The store has been in beta for 7 months in the UK and Germany and is now available in the UK, France and Italy. More countries will be added soon.

At first sight, the store differs a lot from the original beta version. See an overview of the beta version here. The biggest differences with the beta store are outlined below.

Content

The store offers free and paid applications for Windows Mobile. Currently 300 app are available that were approved by Samsung for the launch. There are also Symbian applications available in the store, but there is no mobile client yet for Symbian phones to download these apps.

The content is divided in 9 different categories. Eight of them are familiar from other stores, but the Samsung Application Store also has a special app category where users can download and purchase content from Handmark, which develops both mobile content and app stores for parties like Samsung.

Mobile access

The Samsung Application Store now has a mobile client for the OMNIA phone. Users can download this Windows Mobile client from the application store website. Downloading and purchasing of application is at this time only possible from the mobile client. The website only provides an overview of top applications, like Google Android Market also does.

Support to download and purchase applications from the website will be added in a later stage. The mobile client is not pre-installed on Samsung phones yet, but this might come soon.

Billing and revenue share

Consumers that want to purchase applications pay with credit card. Samsung says that operator billing, so that a consumer can buy applications with just one click and the amount will appear on the phone bill, will be introduced later.

Developers get a revenue share of 70% and can sign up here to get their content in the store.

Samsung already announced that its application store would go live on September 14. In an email to users of the current beta store in the UK and Germany, more details are outlined:

• The Samsung Aplication Store will open in the UK, France, and Italy on September 14th.
• Initially, the store will be accessible to Omnia and I8910HD (Omnia HD) users and later to Omnia II and OmniaLITE users.
• Customers that want to download and buy applications, need to register an account with Samsung.
• The store will replace the current beta store at its launch.

We will keep track of the available content in the store from its launch. See an overview of the content in the current beta store here.