Opera Software unveiled on Monday a deal with privately-held Appia to run a mobile software store for the users of Opera mobile browsers. The Opera Mobile Store is now open and available at mobilestore.opera.com. This storefront is a featured Speed Dial link in the Opera Mini and Opera Mobile browsers. The Opera Mobile Store has been built and delivered through a partnership with Appia, a provider of open application marketplace technology.

The Opera Mobile Store offers both free and paid applications for any mobile platform and device. The Opera Mobile Store is available to Opera users and users of other mobile browsers, on all popular mobile phone platforms in more than 200 countries. The Opera Mobile Store uses Appia's storefront commerce technology and leverages a wide catalog of applications for phones with Java, Symbian, BlackBerry and Android operating systems.

"The launch of the Opera Mobile Store supports Opera's core belief in an open, cross-platform mobile Internet experience by providing Opera users with an integrated storefront of mobile applications," said Mahi de Silva, EVP, Consumer Mobile, Opera Software. "Our partnership with Appia delivers to all Opera Mobile and Opera Mini users easy access to a wide variety of great content, on any device, all over the world."

To support the Opera Mobile Store, Opera Software has also launched the Opera Publisher Portal, providing developers with an easy way to get their applications onto the Opera Mobile Store and in front of Opera users every month. Opera claims that in its pre-launch state, the Opera Mobile Store attracted more than 15 million users in February, from 200 countries, achieving more than 700,000 downloads per day.

Since Apple's App Store opened in 2008 and created the market for mobile software sales dozens of companies have opened their own stores.

Opera is the world's most used mobile browser ahead of Apple, Nokia and Google's Android, according to Web analytics firm StatCounter.