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Nokia’s Ovi Store is gaining momentum and turning in some pretty impressive stats …

• Every day more than 300,000 new Nokia accounts are created
• Every day consumers worldwide download some 6 million mobile apps & content
• Ovi Store has grown nearly eight-fold in just one year
• More than 48,000 apps are now available on the Store
• Nearly 1,000 new apps are added each week
• Series 40 devices, which will enable apps for the next billion mobile-phone users, have grown their download volumes in excess of 35 per cent during the last two months, making up about a quarter of all Store downloads
• As of May 2011, more than 170 developers had each exceeded 1 million downloads on Ovi Store
• Among these developers, 15 companies had 10 million to 20 million downloads; five companies had 20 million to 30 million; and one company, Offscreen Technologies, had more than 72 million downloads
• Operator billing connections are growing at a steady pace – 121 operators across 42 countries

Click here to find out more.

As you know, AppsArabia works closely with all the platforms and telcos, and we can now share with you that Nokia’s Ovi Store is about to launch operator billing in UAE with Etisalat. (They are already live with operator billing in KSA with STC).

This is massive news! Many smartphone users in MENA do not have credit/debit cards or else they do not want to use them to buy apps from the app stores, either online or via their devices.

Operator billing means that app entrepreneurs can collect payments from consumers easily and efficiently for things like app sales and in-app purchases. The payments get charged directly to the consumer’s Etisalat account – post paid customers will see the charges on their monthly bill and pre-paid customers will have the charges deducted from their credit.

AppsArabia believes that operator billing is an effective solution to the biggest challenge in this region … how to collect money from consumers. Congratulations to Nokia and Etisalat for leading the way here in the UAE and we hope that operator billing will be rolled out across the whole region with all platforms and all telcos soon.

Great article by Jon Jordan @ PocketGamer.biz about how Nokia shouldn’t be forgotten. I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks this … I’ve been saying it for a while.

Click here for the full article.

I am keen to invest in an app project for the Nokia platform so get your thinking caps on! And then submit your investment application via the form on this site!