Sony Ericsson jumps on app store bandwagon

Another player jumps on the app store bandwagon. This time it’s struggling feature phone vendor Sony Ericsson, which on Thursday announced plans to distribute mobile applications via its PlayNow arena.

By teaming up with independent app store GetJar, Sony Ericsson will expand its mobile content offering with a library of over 45,000 free applications that will complement a series of premium apps from Sony Ericsson.

GetJar now claims to receive over one million downloads a day across more than 200 countries, with over 200,000 developer accounts under its belt. The app store caters to Java-based devices and targets Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone, Palm, BlackBerry, and Flash Lite-compatible phones.

Sony Ericsson will use GetJar’s upload infrastructure to make the submission process for new applications easy for developers.

“Truly successful app stores need a platform which can cope with the enormous levels of consumer demand from day one, while also providing a deep and varied content offering for consumers across a wide range of handsets and platforms,” said Ilja Laurs, founder and CEO of GetJar. “Sony Ericsson is able to draw on our track record and global experience of delivering apps for everyone, to ensure rapid growth and success.”