Nokia Ovi Store May 2026

Apple had 50,000 apps in its first year. By 2010, the Nokia Ovi Store had just 13,000. Why? Nokia demanded a 70/30 revenue split (30% to Nokia), but the real killer was the certification cost. Developers had to pay for Symbian Signed—a bureaucratic, expensive validation process. A small developer could publish to Apple in days; publishing to Ovi took weeks and hundreds of dollars.

If you want, I can:

The word "Ovi" meant nothing to English speakers. Worse, Nokia kept two parallel stores: the "Nokia Store" (for older S40 phones) and the "Ovi Store" (for smartphones). In late 2011, Nokia finally rebranded it to the "Nokia Store," admitting the Ovi brand was a failure. By then, the decision was three years too late.

The Ovi Store was targeted at:

At peak (2010-2011), over 100+ million Nokia devices had Ovi Store client pre-installed or available as an update.

The Ovi Store officially launched in May 2009. In contrast to Apple’s walled garden, the Ovi Store felt like a chaotic bazaar.

Because Nokia’s operating system at the time, Symbian, was an open beast, the Ovi Store was filled with things you just couldn’t find on iOS. It was the golden age of utility apps. If you wanted an app that changed your LED flash into a strobe light, a fully functional universal remote control (thanks to infrared blasters), or a deep-level file manager that let you edit system files, Ovi was the place to be. nokia ovi store

And then there were the Themes. Oh, the themes. While iPhone users were stuck with a grid of icons on a static wallpaper, Symbian users were downloading fully interactive skins that changed every icon, every menu animation, and the clock widget.

The hardware that was supposed to introduce the world to the Ovi Store was the Nokia N97 (2009). It was a flagship with a tilting touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard. It was also a buggy, slow, underpowered mess. When reviewers showed that the app store crashed on the flagship device, the narrative was set: Nokia couldn't do software. The Ovi Store was perceived not as a feature, but as a reason not to buy the phone.

For those who used it, the Nokia Ovi Store offered a distinctly "Nokia" experience. On flagship devices like the Nokia N97, N8, and E72, the store was pre-installed. Apple had 50,000 apps in its first year

The Good:

The Bad: