Ovi Store can't escape App association
Published: May 27, 2009
- Nokia opens Ovi Store for business
- No indication as to which markets will next get a dedicated Ovi Store
- Is launching a marketing and PR push across the region
- Critics not convinced it can beat Apple's App store yet
Regional - Nokia has begun rolling out its much anticipated online software and content store, Ovi Store, but can it match the success of Apple's App store?
Nokia says the Ovi Store is available globally to an estimated 50 million Nokia device owners across more than 50 Nokia devices including the forthcoming flagship device, the Nokia N97.
The company has also implemented dedicated Ovi Stores in nine countries (Singapore is one of them) while consumers in Malaysia will have to settle for accessing the global Ovi Store for now.
A Nokia spokesperson could not give a clear indication as to when or if a dedicated Ovi Store for the Malaysia market would open, only saying Nokia will expand on the current number of stores and was considering markets on a "case by case basis."
"We look forward to continue working with local content providers and developers to bring more exciting content to consumers," Vlasta Berka, GM, Nokia Singapore/Malaysia and Brunei, said in a statement.
The mobile client is available in English, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish and supports operator billing in Singapore, Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, and the United Kingdom.
Nokia is launching a marketing and PR push across the region to promote the Ovi Store although at press time the company declined to divulge more information on the strategy. Globally / regionally aligned agency partnerships with JWT and Text 100 are leading the effort.
Sources in Malaysia say the activation here will coincide with the launch of the N97 device which happens on 5 June.
Analysts are also indicating that Nokia may have to spend big if they are to make consumers aware of what it is offering and to match the success of Apple's App store which garnered plenty of media attention when it launched.
"Not only did Apple benefit from tremendous media hype - mostly free - it has always had the luxurious position of being an aspirational brand - certainly not the case with Nokia," David Wood, group managing director and founder of DWA, a media agency specialising in the IT sector, said.
"Nokia is still just a phone albeit with increasingly sophisticated and consumer oriented apps," he said.
Nokia also declined to reveal how much budget has been allocated to market the Ovi Store and would not talk about competitor, Apple.
DWA's Wood said that until Nokia is able to achieve the brand status Apple enjoys, it will always be categorised as just another communications device.
"The foray into the music world has brought limited success and I am yet to be convinced that Nokia has the correct marketing strategy to change perceptions as to its core product offering," he said.
Ovi Store is an evolving media service that consolidates Nokia's existing content services into a one-stop-shop for free and paid content. Nokia says thousands of the content industry's biggest names along with independent application developers are distributing their media, applications and games through Ovi Store.
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The issue isn't so much about Nokia V Apple on the apps front, it's that apps are one of the most meaningful advances in personal computing via the hand held device in quite a while, but they are being held back. Despite all these horrible cross border restrictions and the completely archaic way the telcos both price and restrict access to this content on the 3G and 3.5G networks (Singapore), some apps are extremely useful. Additionally it is a real pity that the advertising of apps in this region, whether of the Apple variety or others, depicts them as gimmicks and games - but their real power lies in areas like hyper fast news, real time info on everything from stocks, to weather, radio station feeds, currency converters, Skype chat, soccer/football scores etc. All this is done in a way that reduces dependency on keyboards and therefore largely frees up the hand held to be much much more. However as brilliant as apps can be, when used at their full potential, slow network speeds and limited offerings in this geographical region, limit their usefulness. Until the mobile data networks like (the disappointing) 3G are in the hands of the technology innovators like Apple and Nokia, instead of in the hands of telcos desperately trying to carve out new revenues from very old fashioned voice over wires businesses, then we will always be held back. I get a little bit sick of this bright shiny advertising for iPhones and other super hand-helds depicting speeds which just aren't possible in Malaysia by any stretch of the imagination. If you want to check out what a news app looks like search in the app store on iPhone for "iMarketing" - it's a nice app that's been around for a year now and it's what got me so interested in apps as a content delivery system, but beware it runs very slow...but that's not our fault!
Oh just re-read that - I want to clarify iMarketing is our app. It's the companion to Marketing mag ... the real one from Singapore and Hong Kong and A+M in Malaysia.