Yandex launches app store in challenge to Google

Russia’s main search engine Yandex has has gone head to head with its main rival Google by developing an application store for Android-based smartphones and tablets, Bloomberg reported.

For now Yandex.Store has offered its services to phone makers and operators with mobile operator OAO MegaFon and gadget producer Oppo Electronics among its first clients. The store currently has over 50,000 paid and free apps.

Roughlty 30% of Android-based smartphones are produced by small manufacturers including from China who are not given permission to use Google Play. “This is the niche we are targeting,” said Alexander Zverev, the head of Yandex.Store.

Of the 722 million smartphones sold around the world in 2012, 69% were based on Google’s Android operating system, according to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.