After successfully launching the service in India, Nokia is bringing its (now called) Ovi Life Tools (Nokia Ovi Sheng Huo Tong) to the world’s still fastest growing economy. Two of Nokia’s low-end devices will support the service at launch – the Nokia 1616 and Nokia 1800, and there are 6 partners involved: 39.net, Beijing Nongxintong Technology Co. Ltd., Beijing Etiantian Net Educational Technology Co. Ltd (Beijing Sizhong Ltd.), British Council, Kongzhong Corporation and Sina.com.
The service(s) is/are available to consumers via subscription or on demand via a dedicated icon on the menu. From there users can choose which service they need and try it out (free two week trial) before subscribing to it.
There are four different services available:
- Healthcare services (in partnership with 39.net) – information on topics including Respiratory, Hepatitis B, Female Illnesses and Male Illnesses. It also includes Pregnancy Care which provides daily content that parallels the weekly development stages of pregnancy and Infant Care. The subscription cost for each of the healthcare services is RMB 5 per month and RMB 1 for each on-demand request.
- Agriculture services (in partnership with Beijing Nongxintong Technology) – covering Agriculture News, Market Prices, and Agriculture Weather. The service provides daily market prices of more than 800 markets spanning across city and county levels. The subscription cost is RMB 8 per month and RMB 1 for each on-demand request.
- Education services (in partnership with Beijing Etiantian Net Educational Technology and the British Council) – features Learn English, General Knowledge and Exam Tips. These services will be made available in Q3 2010, when interested users will be able to subscribe to it for RMB 5 per month.
- Entertainment services (in partnership with Kongzhong Corporation and Sina.com) – includes Weather, Jokes and Straw Draw, with more content to be added in the future. The subscription cost is RMB 5 per month and RMB 1 per on-demand request.
More information about Nokia’s Ovi Life Tools in China can be found here.
And for the record, currently there are almost 732 million rural residents in China, which is roughly 55% of the total population.