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Shazam hits 1 million downloads in Nokia’s Ovi Store after 7 months; 1.5 million in 2 months on App Store

Categories: Applications, Nokia, Symbian
By: , IntoMobile
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010 at 7:41 AM

Shazam, the music service that allows users to identify what song they’re currently listening to by way of recording a short sample and then sending it to a remote server for processing, has just announced that they’ve hit 1 million downloads via Nokia’s Ovi Store since making their application avilable in store in August 2009. That’s 7 months.

Contrast to a press release they issued in September of 2008 that said Shazam has been downloaded 1.5 million times since the Apple App Store launched in July 2008. Only 2 months.

That says something, and if you need me to spell it out for you then let me give you a hint: Nokia is failing to lead the market.

For those of you who have never used the service, here’s a quick 5 minute 40 second video explaining what Shazam does, along with a quick demo:

About The Author

Stefan Constantinescu

Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.

  • Teppo Hudson

    I might be wrong, but you most likely mean that Shazam was published in Ovi on august 2009 (not 2008 as it says now)? That would make 7months.

  • Stefan Constantinescu

    thanks for the correction!

  • Kevin

    Between 2007-8, there were over TEN MILLION downloads of Verizon’s VCast Song ID app, which is based on Shazaam.

    And that was to dumbphones, from Verizon’s BREW app store.

    The cellphone app market was huge before Apple’s came along.

  • hary

    Just for the sake of exact comparison,
    Shazam in App Store and Ovi Store at launch was not the same price. Infact it was quite expensive initially for few month in Ovi Store, after which the price was reduced and then the real downloads started. I know this, since i did not buy it as i think the basic version was ~ $5 or $10 initially. (I don’t remember the exact price).

    Hence I think, there is a difference in the above duration. Also the above link just mentions “Downloads”, Shazam is even coming pre-installed in some of the Nokia phones, like 5630 and few others, hence those users don’t need to download. So there is bound to be a difference in the numbers.

    Considering all this, I am sure that App store would have still edged out Ovi but not by the big margin that you are depicting here.

    The movie has just begun.

  • hary

    Just for better comparison,

    Shazam price at launch in App Store and Ovi store was not same. It was twice or thrice the price in Ovi initially compared to App store.

    Also, Shazam comes preloaded in quite a few Nokia models, hence no need to download. Those numbers are not included in the above 1 million.

    Still, App store would have edged out Ovi, but not by a big margin as you have tried to depict here.

    The movie has just begun!!

  • hary

    Sorry didn’t mean to post twice, but after 1st submit, the page gave error and did not post the comment. Hence posted 2nd time, with less words. But now i see that there are two posts.