Nokia has revealed some statistics about its app store, Nokia store (previously Ovi Store). The company claims that Nokia Store now has 100,000+ apps and is recording more than 13 million downloads per day. It claims to have 100 million registered Nokia Store customers and says that around 350 developers have apps on the store which has crossed more than 1 million downloads. These figures account for app downloads across Nokia’s Series 40 feature phones and Symbian smartphones.
It’s interesting to note that the company had already given up on Symbian to choose Windows Phone as the preferred operating system for its next generation of smartphones, and had said that globally, the slowdown in Symbian sales was faster than what it had expected. India is one of Nokia’s strongest markets with a large user base, and according to a recent report, had a 31% market share till December 2011, in terms of handset shipments. The company had launched two Windows Phone devices in the Indian market, both of which received substantial price cuts, just a few months after the launch. However, they are priced upwards of Rs 15,000 and don’t address the lower end of the smartphone market. The company offers Symbian devices at different price points but is facing a challenge from Android devices offered by phone makers like Samsung, HTC and LG on one hand, in addition to facing competition from BlackBerry, which is now targeting the youth.
Offering Free Apps To Symbian Customers
In a bid to lure potential customers towards its Symbian devices, and reward existing ones, Nokia has announced that it will offer premium applications and games worth Rs 3850, to users of its Symbian phones, Nokia C5-05, Nokia C5-03, Nokia 500, Nokia 603 and Nokia 701. The company said this offer will be available for both existing as well as new customers.
The new games include popular EA Sports titles like FIFA ‘12, EA Cricket ’11, Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’11, Tekken, Medal of Honor and Need for Speed and other popular games including include Monopoly, FIFA ‘11, Flight Control, Zuma’s Revenge and Hard Rock collection. Among the free apps offered are utility apps like SMS scheduler, SMS spam manager, Call recorder, Contacts Hider and Message Hider, however it should be noted that a statement from the company states that the apps are available for Nokia C5-05 and Nokia C5-03 users, so we are not quite sure if these utility apps are also available for Nokia 500, Nokia 603, and Nokia 701 phones.
How to Download? Users will need to SMS a keyword – ‘Nokiaapps <modelnumber>’ to the short code 55555 to activate their device and download the apps. For instance, if the user has a Nokia C5, he would have to send ‘NokiaappsC5’ to 55555.
Similar promotions: In September 2011, Ibibo had also partnered with Huawei to offer its applications, games and virtual currency on Huawei mobile handsets and Micromax had partnered with Nazara Technologies to pre-embed 40 EA game titles including the popular titles like Need for Speed, EA Cricket 11, Tetris and Harry Potter, although users had to buy these games priced at Rs 49 – Rs 99 after the five initial free trials.
(By Vikas SN & Anupam Saxena)
