Samsung to take on Google Play, Apple's App store?

Samsung has launched a rebranded new store in a further attempt to carve out a niche for itself in the industry.

The company announced that the new app store features hundreds of exclusive apps with promotions and discounts geared at Samsung Galaxy mobile devices.

What it aims to do is entice Samsung mobile phone users to opt for the new Samsung Galaxy Apps rather than Google’s Android Play Store and provide a more device centric approach like what Apple does.

But will it be able to take on Android and Apple? The app store boasts of about 1.5 million apps downloaded about 18 billion times by Android users using the Play Store.

According to a recent report by App Annie, the revenue earned by Android through its Play Store has grown by massive 140 per cent at the end of the first quarter of 2014 compared to the same period last year, with countries like India, Russia and Brazil among the top-5 downloading nations.

Apple meanwhile has remained the dominant player in terms of revenue.

Ever since Apple first launched its App store in July 2008 and until June 2014 registered 75 billion total app downloads earning the company almost $10 billion in sales.

According to available statistics Apple’s App store witnesses 300 million visitors to the App Store per week.

Samsung meanwhile has a significant advantage to compete with these numbers as it emerges as the number one company, in terms of smartphone sales.

In 2013 Samsung which was the number on smartphone retailer extended its lead accounting for 31.3 per cent of sales, ahead of Apple’s 15.3 percent. During the first quarter of 2014 alone Samsung sold about 89 million smartphones compared to 43.7 million iPhones.

With these numbers Samsung could be hoping that a revamped Galaxy App store could earn itself significant revenue especially since Samsung earns much less for every smartphone it sells compared to Apple.

“At Samsung, we continuously strive to create value for our customers by providing differentiated solutions and services coupled with innovative devices,” said WonPyo Hong, President of the Media Solution Center at Samsung Electronics.

The store is already available here in the UAE with Arabic language support and currency displayed in dirhams instead of US dollars.

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