Taobao Android App Store Launches, Might Solve App Payment Situation for China
Chinese Android users now have yet another alternative app store to choose from after the launch of Taobao’s new app market (pictured above). The store – at app.taobao.com – has lots of free apps and gaming titles, most of which are Chinese-only, such as the Flipboard clone Zaker. It even has apps that belong to rival e-commerce sites. One omission is the new Flipboard for Android ‘China Edition’.
Taobaoの新たなアプリマーケット（写真上）の登場で、中国のAndroidユーザーは、さらにアプリストアの選択肢が増えたようだ。このストア（app.taobao.com）では、多くの無料アプリとゲームを取り扱っており、そのほとんどが、FlipboardのクローンアプリのZakerのように中国語仕様のみとなっている。このストアでは、ライバルEコマースサイトのアプリでさえも取り扱っている。ただ1つの例外は、Android「中国版」の新しいFlipboardだ。
While all the apps are free thus far, the Taobao app store has the potential to solve the Android app payment problem in China, since Taobao’s parent company, Alibaba, also runs the country’s largest e-payment platform, Alipay. China is one of the few areas where the Google Play store for Android cannot process payments. We’ll have to wait and see if that happens with this new venture. So far, the Taobao App Store lacks even a mobile app of its own, but it is now included in Taobao’s Android app.
The new store gives local developers a huge new audience, since Taobao is the nation’s most popular e-commerce site, and its Android app already has tens of millions of users.
The launch marks a reinvention of the “Taobao App Store” name and URL, as it was previously serving as a home for e-commerce-related tools and extensions since its initial opening in January 2010.
