Nokia launches Ovi Store with Reliance Communications in India

Company Brief

Mumbai, February 22, 2011

Nokia and Reliance Communications, in a first of its kind partnership in the country, today announced the launch of the India chapter of Ovi Store, Nokia's immensely popular mobile application store. Reliance Communications will be the first service provider to offer integrated operator billing for their consumers in India enabling access to a host of paid for content on the Ovi Store. The amount will be either included in their monthly mobile phone bills or deducted from the pre-paid balance, per their data plans.

The Ovi Store is a one-stop-shop for mobile content to help consumers personalize their Nokia devices. It supports the widest range of content and file types including applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services and much more. Launched in 2009, the Ovi Store has 4 million downloads per day globally, a milestone spurred by overall global demand and a recent update that gives users a friendlier look and feel as well as more popular apps and games. India currently sees more than 4.5 million downloads a week.

Commenting on this alliance, Prashant Gokarn - 3G Head, Reliance Communications, said, "Nokia and RCOM have had a longstanding and an extremely fruitful association, and this new venture will only strengthen our joint mission to offer enriched services to our loyal consumers. This relationship brings exclusive apps through Ovi Store coupled with a convenient purchase process. This service will usher in significant growth in adoption and usage of apps in India. This service is a big step in a series of innovation led products from RCOM."

V Ramnath, Director - Operator Channels, Nokia India, said, "Our partnership with Reliance Communications is a big step towards providing Indian consumers easy and simplified access to Ovi Store content through operator billing. The response from consumers in India has already exceeded our expectations, with the number of weekly downloads crossing 4.5 million. We believe our partnership will help accelerate this further.

"Ovi Store is focused on providing relevant and useful content to our consumers to help them get the most out of their mobile lifestyle. For Reliance consumers, we have especially made available over 17,000 pieces of locally relevant paid for content," he added.

About Reliance Communications

Reliance Communications Limited founded by the late Shri Dhirubhai H Ambani (1932-2002) is the flagship company of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group. The Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group currently has a net worth in excess of Rs. 64,000 crore (US$ 13.6 billion), cash flows of Rs. 13,000 crore (US$ 2.8 billion), net profit of Rs. 8,400 crore (US$ 1.8 billion).

Reliance Communications is India's foremost and truly integrated telecommunications service provider. The Company, with a customer base of 120 million with over 2.5 million individual overseas retail customers and nearly 3 million DTH customers, ranks among the Top 5 Telecom companies in the world by number of customers in a single country. Reliance Communications corporate clientele includes 2,100 Indian and multinational corporations, and over 800 global, regional and domestic operators.

Reliance Communications has established a pan-India, next generation, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network that is capable of supporting best-of-class services spanning the entire communications value chain, covering over 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages. Reliance Communications owns and operates the world's largest next generation IP enabled connectivity infrastructure, comprising over 190,000 route kilometers of fibre optic cable systems in India, USA, Europe, Middle East and the Asia Pacific region.

For further information, please contact:

Nokia India

Anindita Phukan

Email: anindita.phukan@nokia.com