Nokia's Ovi lead in France, Cedric Thomas, surprised developers in a presentation by acknowledging that Apple, Google and others had better positions in the app market. The manager told those at the platform-independent MIPCOM conference in Cannes that iPhone apps were a "must have" in the US and European Union countries. Android and BlackBerry had strong positions in the US as well; Nokia's footprint for the the Ovi Store was in Asia and Europe, Thomas said with Mobile Entertainment in attendance.
The candor was unusual for Nokia, which has usually tried to promote the reach of Ovi but has fallen behind Apple and Google even with significantly market share for the devices themselves. Nokia's download rate is accelerating and just at the MIPCOM event reached 2.5 million. The figure is regardless just a fraction of Apple's and hinted that many Nokia smartphone owners either didn't have an incentive to download from the Ovi Store or weren't aware the store existed.
Nokia has increasingly been the subject of resistance from developers as the costs and delays of development have become setbacks, as have the limitations on what the apps themselves could do. The company was one of the later platform owners to implement in-app purchases and others that have been staples of the iPhone and other phones for longer.
Source: electronista
