China Mobile – the world’s largest mobile operator by subscribers – has agreed to support the Symbian Foundation in a deal seen as a major boost to the open source smartphone platform as it seeks to maintain its leadership position in light of increasing competition from Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android. In a statement, China Mobile and Symbian said they would “collaborate on a series of key initiatives to improve the mobile ecosystem in China and to stimulate the development of the market for [China Mobile’s] locally developed 3G network standard, TD-SCDMA.” The first fruits of the partnership involve the simplification of testing services for developers submitting applications to China Mobile’s newly launched application store, Mobile Market. The inclusion of the ‘Symbian Signed’ services will allow China Mobile to provide mobile developers with a one-stop facility for testing, signing and publishing Symbian-based applications. Currently, more than 50 percent of Mobile Market’s 2,000 applications are based on the Symbian platform, the firms said in a statement.

“By entering this partnership with the foundation we hope to have greater involvement in the development of new and exciting mobile applications, thereby enabling developers to satisfy consumers’ 3G requirements via our Mobile Market store and enhancing the value chain for the TD-SCDMA industry,” said Lu Xiang Dong, a vice-president at China Mobile. In return, Symbian has guaranteed its support for China Mobile’s plans to strengthen its TD-SCDMA network, and to facilitate the Symbian ecosystem in its development of Symbian-based TD-SCDMA devices. Symbian has also launched a new Chinese-language website to support its efforts in the country.