China Mobile Ltd. (CHL) said Monday it launched an open source mobile operating system to help increase the number of handsets that can use China's homegrown third-generation mobile technology.

The open source platform will help lower the barrier to developing handsets that run on Time Division Synchronous Code Division Multiple Access technology, China Mobile Chairman Wang Jianzhou said in a statement.

The company said it will launch a TD-SCDMA handset based on its open source mobile operating system this year.

It said Legend Holdings Ltd.'s handset division, as well as HTC Corp. (2498.TW), LG Electronics Inc. (066570.SE) and Dell Inc. (DELL) are now offering 2G hansets based on China Mobile's open source platform.

Legend Holdings is the parent of Lenovo Group Ltd. (LNGVY).

-By Lorraine Luk, Dow Jones Newswires; 852-2802-7002; lorraine.luk@dowjones.com