Currently viewing and reading

Nokia unveils Ovi Store – Nokia’s Own Mobile App Store

Posted by amit in May 26th 2009

Today, Nokia unveiled its mobile app store -?Ovi. Apple surpassed a staggering 1 billion app downloads recently and this has been a very obvious reason for Nokia to launch its own Nokia apps store.

The leader in mobile phones, Nokia beleieves that?Ovi store?is set to spark a rapid evolution in the way we use our mobile devices. ?This is actually true because majority of the mobile handsets all over the world are Nokia.?

And Nokia is already the strongest contender having close to?40% market share?which is far more than its nearest competitor, Samsung at 15%!

If Nokia takes Ovi seriously, which according to me it will then there is no stopping the giant from gaining an even larger piece of the mobile market pie.

It hasn’t been 24 hours since Ovi launched and there is already a plethora of Free and Paid apps.

There is a lot of content that you can get your hands on – games, videos, social networking and a lots more. You’ve got to check it out for yourself to see what apps you really find cool.

Nokia said that about 50 devices are compatible with Ovi from day one and support for more devices will be rolled out over time. Nokia estimates that around 50 million people can reap the benefits of the service right now and this number is sure to grow as support for more phones are added ?and the popularity of the Ovi store gains traction.

Here?s what Tero Ojanper?, Executive Vice President, Nokia Services, had to say about Ovi Store going live today:

?Ovi Store is open for business and we?ve stocked the shelves with both local and global content for a broad range of Nokia devices. Ovi Store makes shopping for content and applications easy and fun for feature phone and smartphone owners alike.?

At the time of writing the Ovi store website is slow and doesn’t seem to load at times but keep refreshing and you’ll be fine. Can we really blame them when they’re already getting so much press and the site is being pounded upon by millions of people?

Here is Ovi store screenshot in case the site doesn’t load -

Nokia Ovi Store Homepage (click to enlarge)

This is the Ovi store homepage, not really what Nokia could’ve made from the resources they have!?

One more thing I’d like to add is that majority of Nokia uses aren’t that savvy to fully?utilize?the offerings of Ovi. Nokia has a vry wide range of handsets and making them compatible is in itself a Herculean?task.