Nokia partners with RCom to launch India's first Ovi store

After its tie-up with Microsoft last week, Nokia today partnered with Reliance Communications to launch its popular Ovi apps store in the country, offering integrated operator billing for RCom consumers in India, enabling access to a host of paid-for content on the Ovi Store. The amount will be either included in their monthly mobile phone bills or deducted from the prepaid balance, as per their data plans. This makes RCom the first operator to offer such services in the country.

Commenting on this alliance, Prashant Gokarn, 3G head, Reliance Communications, said, “Nokia and RCOM have had a longstanding and an extremely fruitful association, and this new venture will only strengthen our joint mission to offer enriched services to our loyal consumers. This relationship brings exclusive apps through Ovi Store coupled with a convenient purchase process. This service is a big step in a series of innovation led products from RCom.”

Launched in 2009, Nokia's Ovi Store is a one-stop-shop for mobile content to help consumers personalize their Nokia devices. Supporting a wide range of content and file types including applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services, the Ovi Store reports 4 mn downloads per day globally, while in India it sees 4.5 mn downloads a week. These high numbers, are no doubt driven by the sudden popularity in smartphone and other VAS apps, and is set to increase even more with 3G coming in.

Talking about the initiative to partner with RCom, V Ramnath, director, operator channels, Nokia India, said, “Our partnership with Reliance Communications is a big step towards providing Indian consumers easy and simplified access to Ovi Store content through operator billing. The response from consumers in India has already exceeded our expectations, and we believe our partnership will help accelerate this further. For Reliance consumers, we have especially made available over 17,000 pieces of locally relevant paid-for content.”

berylm@cybermedia.co.in