Nokia joins
hands with Vodafone India and Bharti Airtel to offer consumers easy access to
premium content
Madh Island, Mumbai, May 9, 2012: – Aiming to
enhance consumer experience, Nokia today announced partnerships with Vodafone
India (Vodafone) and Bharti Airtel (Airtel), the two largest GSM mobile
operators in India, to offer integrated billing solutions on the Nokia Store.
Vodafone and Airtel consumers can now download a plethora of top local and
global paid content on Nokia’s immensely popular mobile application store and
pay for their downloads as part of their monthly mobile phone bills or have the
amount deducted from the pre-paid balance.
The Nokia Store is a one-stop-shop
for mobile content to help users personalize their Nokia devices. It has received
tremendous success from Indian consumers and developers and supports the
widest range of content and file types including applications, games, videos,
podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services and much more.
With over 100,000 pieces of content, it is driving more than 13 million
download requests per day globally, from 3 million downloads just over a year
ago. Nokia Store India currently sees more than 60 million downloads a month.
Currently consumers have the option of purchasing premium content via credit
cards.
Highlighting the benefits of the
partnership for their consumers, Mr. Sanjoy Mukerji, Chief Commercial Officer,
Vodafone India said,
“Nokia and Vodafone have had a longstanding and an extremely fruitful
association, and this new venture will only strengthen our joint mission to
drive mobile internet adoption and thereby offer enriched services to our loyal
consumers. By bringing premium apps to consumers through the Nokia Store via a
convenient purchase process, this relationship aims to nurture the apps
ecosystem and usher in significant growth in adoption of data and usage of apps
in India. This would also offer significant monetization opportunities to
developers and galvanize local content development. This service is a big step
in a series of innovation led products from Vodafone”.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. N
Rajaram, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel, said, “We
constantly innovate and partner with the best in the world to offer our
customers rich content and experiences. This partnership will strengthen our
efforts to increase usage of Mobile Internet services in India. It will provide
access to premium Apps, Games etc. from across the globe, thereby enriching the
customer experience. In addition it will accelerate the development of the
Mobile Internet ecosystem in India.”
Going a step further, Nokia also
announced the availability of in-app billing solutions, which allow consumers
to purchase digital content directly from within the application’s interface
providing them with greater control over the content they purchase. In
addition, Nokia has also put in place a broader range of price points on the
Nokia Store in India creating a hugely attractive and valuable purchase
opportunity.
According to Mr. Viral Oza,
Director Marketing, Nokia India, said, “The Nokia Store is focused on
providing relevant and useful content to our consumers to help them get the
most out of their mobile lifestyle. The response from consumers in India has already exceeded our expectations,
with the number of monthly downloads at 60 million and growing. We
believe our partnership with Vodafone and Airtel, the two largest GSM mobile
operators in the country, will provide
more and more Indian consumers easy access to paid content on the Nokia
Store.
He continued to add, “This is also
a significant step for our developer partners. Nokia Store is a great way to
reach millions of consumers. Our growing eco-system of partners for India
billing helps accelerate monetization and offers a good opportunity to create
and distribute local apps and content. It also marks the opening up of India as
a market to publishers round the world. In-app billing and additional price
points further enhance monetization opportunities.”
About Nokia
Nokia is committed to connecting people to what
matters to them by combining advanced mobile technology with personalized
services. More than 1.3 billion people connect to one another with a Nokia,
from our most affordable voice-optimized mobile phones to advanced
Internet-connected smartphones sold in virtually every market in the world.
Through our services, people also enjoy access to maps and navigation on
mobile, a rapidly expanding applications store, a growing catalog of digital
music, and more. Nokia's NAVTEQ is a leader in comprehensive digital mapping
and navigation services, and Nokia Siemens Networks is one of the leading
providers of telecommunications infrastructure hardware, software and
professional services globally.
About
Vodafone
Vodafone India is a member of the
Vodafone Group and commenced operations in 1994 when its predecessor Hutchison
Telecom acquired the cellular license for Mumbai. The company now has
operations across the country with over 150 million customers. Vodafone India
has firmly established a strong position within the Vodafone Group too.
This journey is a strong testimony of Vodafone’s success in a highly
competitive and price sensitive market.
Vodafone India has been awarded the
Most Admired Telecom Operator and Best 3G Operator at the recent Telecom
Operator Awards 2012. The company also received the globally recognized
prestigious ‘Product of the Year 2012’ consumer award for Vodafone Apps Store
in the Mobile Services Category. In another survey conducted by Nielsen,
Vodafone India was the only telecom player in the Top 10 ‘Most Exciting Youth
Brands’ in India. Vodafone India also features in the Top 10 ‘Most
Trusted Brands in India’ for 2011, in a survey conducted by a leading financial
daily.
At Vodafone, sustainability is an
integral part of the company’s mission and strategy, shaping the conduct of
business every day. Vodafone India, in line with its group philosophy has
released the Corporate Sustainability Report for India – Footprints 2010-11. To
view the online version of the report, please visit www.vodafone.in
Vodafone Group is one of the
world's largest mobile communications companies by revenue with over 398
million customers as at December 31, 2011. Vodafone currently has equity
interests in over 30 countries across five continents and more
than 40 partner networks worldwide. For more information, please visit www.vodafone.com
About
Bharti Airtel
Bharti Airtel Limited is a leading
integrated telecommunications company with operations in 20 countries across
Asia and Africa. Headquartered in New Delhi, India, the company ranks amongst
the top 5 mobile service providers globally in terms of subscribers. In India,
the company's product offerings include 2G, 3G and 4G services, fixed line,
high speed broadband through DSL, IPTV, DTH, enterprise services including
national & international long distance services to carriers. In the rest of
the geographies, it offers 2G, 3G mobile services. Bharti Airtel had close to
252 million customers across its operations at the end of March 2012.
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