Earlier this month, Nokia announced that they were aiming to move 10 million units of the Nokia N97 NAM. The N97 rivals the iPhone 3G S. The phone officially started shipping this past week and we will be monitoring the sales progress of the device as the time passes.
The N97 is selling in about 75 countries across the globe and they are available for purchase at Nokia’s flagship stores in Chicago and New York. The price of the device is $699 unlocked. The device can also be pre-ordered from Nokia USA’s website. The phone is available in black and white.
At the end of this month, the Nokia N97 will start shipping in the U.S. The device touts features such as a 360×240 resolution, touch screen, full QWERTY keyboard, accelerometer, compass, magnetometer, access to the Ovi store, TV out, visual radio, A-GPS, Flash video capabilities, 5 megapixel camera, video editor, FM transmitter, Bluetooth, and a talk time of about 9.5 hours.
However this device will be competing head on with the launch of the Palm Pre on June 6th and the possibility of a new iPhone hitting the mobile market. To make things even harder, the N97 does not come at a cheap price.
“This should not be a niche product,” stated Nokia VP Jonas Geust. “Clearly our ambition is to have a similar success to the N95 family.” The N95 sold roughly 10 million units.
Nokia is gearing up to launch their iPhone App Store competition called the Ovi Store. The competitive advantage that Nokia has is that they are the largest handset manufacturer in the world. The Ovi Store is expected to launch by the end of this month 20,000 titles strong.
Apple launched with only a few hundred applications in their store and it took them several months to hit the 20,000 mark. However when Nokia announced 20,000 titles, it doesn’t exactly mean just applications. It means applications, video clips, audio files, and other entertainment.
The Nokia Ovi Store will come built in to the N97 handset. The N97 features a touchscreen and QWERTY keyboard. The store will come preloaded on all phones that are shipped after the launch of the store. Using the GPS chip built in to the phone, the Ovi Store will even recommend applications for users to download.
Another major announcement made at Mobile World Congress is the unveiling of the Nokia Ovi Store. The Ovi Store will go live in May of this year. The store will be selling games, apps, widgets, videos, podcasts, etc. The Ovi Store will be made available on the S60, Series 40, and N97 Nokia devices. The Ovi Store will include a built in social discovery feature that will allow users to share activity on social networks about the applications being used.
“Ovi Store will empower consumers around the world to take better advantage of the power of mobile through a new content discovery experience,” stated Mauro Montandaro, CEO of Fox Mobile Group. Nokia expects that by 2012, 300 million users will have access to the Ovi Store. Content publishers can register today for an account on Ovi. Developers and publishers will be able to upload content starting next month. More information is available at: http://publish.ovi.com/.
