Nokia Ovi Store reaches 5 million daily downloads
The marketplace now offers over 40,000 apps--an "eight-fold" increase year over year, according to Nokia.
After announcing two new smartphones today, Nokia has released stats about its Ovi Store.
According to the company, its app store is marking 5 million downloads each day. Owners of some of its latest phones, including the Nokia N8, Nokia C6-01, Nokia C7, and the Nokia E7, account for 15 percent of all the daily downloads in the Ovi Store.
Nokia launched the Ovi Store in May 2009. Although it got off to a rough start--it was criticized for poor navigation and an overall subpar user experience--Nokia has done a fine job of making it more user-friendly by improving navigation.
In addition, Nokia and AT&T announced a $10 million contest last fall to promote the Ovi Store. The contest, which ran through the end of March, required developers to create applications and register. The companies are offering more than $4 million to 51 developers who create high-quality and popular applications. The four top winners will receive $5.8 million in prizes, including being featured in Nokia's 2011 marketing campaigns.
All that effort at improving the appeal of its Ovi Store is seemingly paying off. Back in October, Nokia announced that its marketplace had hit 2.3 million daily downloads. Just over a month later, it reached the 3 million mark. At that time, just 92 developers had more than 1 million downloads for their apps. Nokia said today that that figure has grown to 158 developers.
Nokia's store now has more than 40,000 applications, measuring an "eight-fold" increase year-over-year, the company said. About 1,000 applications are being added to its store each week.
Even so, the Ovi Store is still easily overshadowed by the competition. According to Apple's Web site, its App Store has over 350,000 available applications. Google told CNET last month that its Android Market offers over 150,000 applications.
Moreover, Apple's App Store has easily overshadowed Nokia's mobile marketplace in downloads. Apple announced earlier this year that less than three years after its App Store's launch, 10 billion apps had been downloaded. At the time, approximately 1,000 apps were being downloaded from Apple's store every three seconds.