New numbers from the world’s largest mobile manufacturer confirm apps adoption is still accelerating. Here in the UK it may feel like apps culture has saturated, but the increasing rate of use confirms mobile apps will play a much greater role in everyone’s lives even in markets that feel like they’ve already crossed their tipping point…
Nokia’s Ovi Store is now seeing about five million downloads per day.
It has grown eight-fold over the past year as Symbian-powered smartphone owners downloading the offerings from the online storefront. The milestone is significant, as the company has more than doubled the three million downloads per day it saw in November.
The company’s latest Symbian devices like the N8, C6-01, C7 and E7 account for 15 percent of the total. Other numbers Nokia is keen to point out include a library of over 40,000 apps. At the same time, 158 developers spread across 41 countries reached more than one million downloads each for their apps. Nokia also recently began offering apps for older, Series 40 devices which made up a quarter of total downloads.
Part of the reason for its success, Nokia believed, was more support for carrier billing than other companies that offer app stores and depend on separate accounts.
Nokia also offers beta programs that allow in-app billing and in-app ads that keep it roughly on par with stores from Apple and Google.
The results put it above stores like the Windows Phone Marketplace and HP’s webOS App Catalog but well behind market leaders. Apple’s App Store has more than 350,000 apps and, as of September, was at 17.6 million app downloads per day; it’s now thought to be over 20 million.