Ovi Mail hits 1 million users; top countries are India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and South Africa
By Stefan Constantinescu on Tuesday, August 11th, 2009 at 4:44 AM PST In Nokia, Services
Ovi Mail, an email service built by Nokia (NYSE: NOK), has just acquired their 1 millionth user since going live a little over 6 months ago. What makes Ovi Mail special is that in comes bundled on the entry level devices Nokia ships to countries with low PC penetration such as India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and South Africa, which are the top 5 nations using the service today. Of those 1 million accounts, 65% of them were created on a mobile phone. You can not create a Yahoo, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), or Google (NSDQ: GOOG) email account on the go last time I checked, and that is why Nokia created Ovi Mail in the first place. What Nokia doesn’t say is how active those users are. I have an Ovi Mail account, created it to see what the service was like. Logged in once, maybe twice, and never again. Full press release after the jump.
Ovi Mail by Nokia hits 1 million mark – August 11, 2009
Rapid uptake in developing world and over 650,000 accounts created on device
Espoo, Finland: With over one million accounts activated in just over six months, Ovi Mail is quickly establishing itself as the email account for the developing world. Specifically designed for on device set-up, people can get their first email address and create and manage their accounts – no PC needed.
“More than just reaching a company milestone, this proves to us that there is a real appetite in the developing world for these types of tailored services,” said Tom Furlong, head of Consumer Messaging at Nokia. “For first-time email users, Ovi Mail provides a digital identity and we are thrilled by its rapidly rising adoption rate.”
The inspiration for Ovi Mail came from the growing number of people, mostly in developing countries, without access to a PC. The top five countries for Ovi Mail subscribers are India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and South Africa. Since its inception in December 2008, Ovi Mail is available in more than 180 countries and supports 20* languages.
Ovi Mail is free to set-up straight out of the box and comes with spam filters to block unwanted emails. It is also accessible from a broad range of Nokia devices with the Nokia 2330 classic, Nokia 2630 and Nokia 5310 XpressMusic being some of the most popular devices used.
To access Ovi Mail, simply go to the email setup wizard on your Nokia Series 40 device or Nokia S60 device such as the Nokia N97. Ovi Mail is also available on the web at https://mail.ovi.com/.
* Arabic**, Bahasa Indonesia, Bahasa Melayu, Bengali, Finnish**, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Latin America Spanish, Portugese (Brazil), Portugese (Portugal), Russian**, Simplified Chinese**, Spanish, Tagalog, Thai**, (UK) English, (US) English and Vietnamese.
** Language supported on device only.
