Nokia’s app Store for low-cost phones has reached 2 billion app downloads in India, according to a statement by the company. Globally, the Nokia Store has seen well over 10 billion cumulative downloads.
The Store sees up to 80 million downloads per month in India. Nokia also says that 168 Indian developers have passed one million downloads each on Nokia’s Store.
Out of the 2 billion download, nearly 1 billion are on the S40 and Asha platform. The Asha is the low budget range of phones such as Asha 501 while the S40 is Nokia’s OS but on mid-budget phones. S40 phones include Nokia Asha 303 and 311.
According to Nokia, the number one downloaded category is Action Games, followed by Adventure games and Sport games at Number three. Entertainment related apps including video and movies are at number four.
Nokia Asha 501 is seen in this file photo.
Compared to Apple’s App Store which has seen over 50 billion apps downloaded or Google’s Play Store which has seen 48 billion downloads, Nokia Store’s downloads don’t match up. In the world of app 10 billion is still a small number.
However as a recent Gartner report showed it’s Nokia’s Windows Phone that have done well and according to the report the Lumia sales grew 112 percent for the company. Lumia series runs on Windows Phone 8.
Asha and S40 series is still struggling despite the number of app downloads. According to this Guardian report, in the second quarter of 2013, Asha sales fell to 4.3 million while in the previous quarter the number stood at 5 million. The figure was the lowest in the four quarters that the Asha range has been on sale, said the report.
Asha phones are low-end phones expected to compete with low-cost Android phones. In a price-sensitive market like India, China, the success of Asha is crucial for Nokia and to an extent it seems to be reflected in terms of app downloads in India. But as we’ve seen Nokia Asha’s sales haven’t been that high, despite the company offering a very wide portfolio in the Asha series.
The Nokia Store numbers need to be viewed in light of the fact that the Asha and the S40 platform haven’t seen very high sales numbers. For Nokia, the best bet is still Lumia.
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