Google Play smartphone app 'set for mainland China launch next year'
Tech giant plans first major foray across border since pulling services in 2010 over censorship
Google, part of Alphabet Incorporated, aims to launch the mainland version of its Google Play smartphone app store next year, according to people familiar with the matter, in its first major foray there since ending localised product support in 2010.
The Google Play app store would be set up specifically for the mainland, and not connected to overseas versions of Google Play, two of the people said.
They said Google intends to comply with mainland laws on filtering content that might be viewed as sensitive by the ruling Communist Party, and laws requiring the company to store the app store's data within China.
A Singapore-based Google spokesman declined comment.
Google largely pulled its services out of the mainland five years ago after refusing to continue self-censoring its search results. It has maintained a limited presence in the world's biggest smartphone market, but most of its services have been rendered almost inaccessible.
The US company would use a successful app store as a launch pad to place other products on the mainland, said two people familiar with Google's thinking.
They said, however, that the company had not settled on which product might come next.