Unless you live in India or Bangladesh, you can’t actually get your hands on a smartphone running Tizen, Samsung Electronics Co.’s homegrown alternative to the Android mobile operating system.
But starting this week, Samsung is throwing the doors of the Tizen app store open to most countries around the world.
The unusual worldwide launch of the Tizen Store suggests that the South Korean company has broader ambitions beyond India and Bangladesh, where the first Tizen phone has shown some initial signs of traction, according to people familiar with the matter.
That handset, a basic offering called the Samsung Z1, has been on sale since January for less than $100, and is aimed at users who may not even have a bank account.
But from the get-go, Samsung has been eyeing Tizen smartphone launches in other countries across Asia, part of a broader effort to help the fledgling operating system gain momentum.
Samsung has already released six smartwatches, four of them powered by Tizen. Earlier this year, Samsung’s co-chief executive B.K. Yoon said in an interview that every connected television manufactured by Samsung would run Tizen.
The centerpiece of any effort to build up Tizen as a plausible alternative to Google Inc.'s Android and Apple Inc.'s iOS will revolve around the app store.
As Microsoft Corp. and BlackBerry Ltd. can attest, building a rival to Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store — particularly one that is well-stocked with marquee services — is no easy task. For the time being, the Tizen Store doesn’t boast much in the way of big-name apps developed specifically for the platform.
That may explain why Samsung is quietly throwing open the app store first, and inviting developers to build apps that can theoretically reach the entire planet.
For the time being, Samsung isn’t offering any clues about its larger designs. It only confirmed in a statement that the Tizen Store can now be accessed in 182 countries, adding that “our plan for Tizen smarthones has not changed since the launch of the Z1.”
“We see a great potential in Tizen-based smartphone,” a company spokeswoman said.
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