Applications will be offered in the 13 countries that currently support PlayNow arena. The service platform, which is compatible with 38 Sony Ericsson phone models, will roll out to further markets and models over the year.

“Sony Ericsson is delighted to introduce applications as the latest evolution of PlayNow arena, offering an established market place to our developer and partner community,” said Björn Ahlberg, Head of Content & Services at Sony Ericsson. “By bringing high-quality applications into PlayNow arena, consumers are only one click away from the world-wide creativity of innovative application developers.”

Sony Ericsson also announced it will start accepting application submissions as of July 1st, allowing developers to submit high-quality mobile applications to the PlayNow arena as well as to the established online application service, Fun & Downloads. There will be no fees for either service.

The submission process requires little effort and offers a quick time-to-market. Initially, it will be open for Java ME and Symbian OS applications and later this year will expand to cover additional platforms.

PlayNow arena with movies is a bundled movie service from Sony Ericsson, included out-of-the-box for selected handsets, allowing consumers to watch up to 60 movies a year on their mobile phone. Optimised to give consumers the best possible viewing experience, users can choose from a selection of around 15 movies at any one time, with additional titles being added to the catalogue each month. After ‘side loading’ feature length films onto your phone, you can watch them as often as you like for up to 90 days.

PlayNow arena with movies will make its debut with the W995 Walkman, launching in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK from June 2009. Additionally the service will also be made available on upcoming phones such as Satio and Aino which were also announced today.