Nokia in strategic rebranding exercise

Dubai Handset maker Nokia is rebranding its Ovi service strategy in an effort to unify the brand and help it focus on core service offerings. "The decision to rebrand Ovi Store to Nokia Store is part of a wider new branding restructure, which was announced back in May 2011 and is now completed," Tom Farrell, vice-president of Nokia Middle East, told Gulf News. "By centralising our services identity under one brand we will reinforce the powerful master brand of Nokia and unify our brand architecture while continuing to deliver compelling opportunities and experiences for partners and consumers alike," he said. Ovi Share is a media sharing website. Nokia acquired the Twango service in 2007 and it was one of the first elements of the Ovi platform launched. It was renamed Ovi Share in February 2008. He said that in 2011 the Nokia Store witnessed a significant 280 per cent growth in the number of downloads in the region. Within the GCC region alone over 3.5 million applications are downloaded every week, with Saudi Arabia in the "top 10" in terms of global downloads with over 100 million apps downloaded. The transition is now complete, he said and the new Nokia store is accessible to consumers through 78 Nokia devices. Currently Nokia Store is the only app store in the UAE which enables etisalat and du customers to purchase content and pay directly with their mobile account, offering customers a quick, convenient and secure form of payment. If you are an Ovi Share user, you will have until May 30 to download your content before the web service is discontinued. Users can either download all files as a zip package or in various smaller parts. From March 13, uploads will no longer be possible. From gulfnews