The Chinese appetite for smartphones — and the applications they run — is becoming ever bigger. In response, two of the country's major carriers are partnering on a new standardized mobile payment plug-in to be used by app developers for in-app payments. A third carrier may join as well.

According to the Wall Street Journal, China Unicom Ltd. and China Mobile Ltd. will launch a prototype of a plug-in that will make it simpler and easier for developers to include a payment mechanism that works across carriers. The plug-in is set to debut on May 17. The other major state-owned carrier, China Telecom Corp. is in discussions to join the partnership pending development of the standard.

The creation of a unified payment standard for application billing would obviously benefit application developers looking to tap China's burgeoning app economy, but it would also help carriers keep a larger share of revenues generated by apps — that revenue is now shared with numerous payment platform providers. It would also make payments for applications and digital content easier for Chinese consumers who often must use top-up cards bought at local stores or direct carrier billing to pay for in-app purchases.

At this point, the plug-in is still a prototype, the article said, with more development required before it can become standard.

Read more about in-app payments.