The mobile telecommunication market has recently been shaken by the arrival of new actors, such as Apple and Google. As a consequence, the relatively well-established mobile network operators (MNO) have to rethink their position in the market if they want to participate in the growth of mobile telecommunication revenues. Mobile applications and services are being seen as great opportunity of new revenue sources. However, with the current market structure, MNOs do not hold a privileged position compared to mobile platforms providers such as Apple with iTunes. In this paper, we assess whether or not there is still space in the mobile application market for MNOs. In order to do so, we examine different roles in the mobile application value chain and determine how MNOs can position themselves in this turbulent new market. Our analysis shows that MNOs will have to focus on their core business as network provider and establish alliances with platform providers.