KT Corp., the nation’s No. 1 fixed-line service operator, on Monday said it will open its mobile application market in China Mobile’s application store as part of its application-sharing project with China and Japan.

Olleh market will be launched as a “shop-in-shop” on July 9, the Seoul-based company said.

China Mobile’s application store “Mobile Market” has since last year shown greater than 40-fold growth, touting downloads of 350 million as of June this year.

KT said it will start out with about 40 applications, with plans to expand them to 100 by the end of this year.

In August, olleh market will also venture into Japan’s DoCoMo application market, the company said.

“With the launch of olleh market in China Mobile, we have established a bridgehead for local application developers to break into the Chinese market,” said Han Won-sic, head of KT Smart Eco unit.

“KT will continue to foster the environment for innovation to help domestic developers and olleh market become jointly successful in the global markets.”

In January, the three top telecommunication companies of South Korea, China and Japan inked a strategic agreement to pursue bigger exchange and cooperation in the applications market under a project called the “One Asia Super Inter Store,” or “OASIS” for short.

The plan was launched with the aim of offering domestic application developers a chance to venture abroad, while at the same time offering local customers a chance to taste the high-quality mobile content from overseas.

KT said it plans to take the project a step further under the “Global Frontier Project” to join hands with local app developers to together expand their overseas outreach.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)