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Google Play will soon have another competitor.
Russian search engine Yandex announced today that it will soon launch an “alternative” application marketplace for Android users. Dubbed Yandex.Store, the marketplace will offer nearly 40,000 applications and allow vendors to bundle another app store into their devices.
Yandex.Store is also a white-box offering, meaning vendors can place their own branding on top of it. According to Yandex, Russian carrier MegaFon has already signed on to the service.
As with other application stores, Yandex’s option takes 30 percent of the revenue generated from apps. In addition, Yandex.store supports in-app purchasing with help from mobile billing and credit cards.
Still, Yandex.Store has a long way to go to even come close to matching Google Play. Just last week, Google announced that its application store, which is running on the vast majority of Android-based devices, hit 675,000 available apps and 25 billion downloads.
Yandex.Store will launch at the end of the month. When it does, it won’t be anywhere near the only Google Play alternative. Amazon, for example, offers its own marketplace, called Appstore, that has been growing rapidly.
