16 July 2010

OVI Store Continues To Improve
But Significant Challenges Remain

Nokia's Ovi Store was launched a little over one year ago, May 26th 2009. Almost immediately the company issued a statement apologizing to users who were unable to access the service due to "...extraordinarily high spikes of traffic..."

Since then there have been substantial improvements and the store no longer suffers from the kinds of outages reported just after its launch. And volume has continued to scale with downloads passing 1.7 million daily in April.

Developers recognize the improvements over the past year and more than 80% said they would be sticking with Nokia and Ovi with the expectation that their experience would continue to improve. But having 20% of Nokia's "top" developers suggest that they would leave Ovi is certainly a sign of trouble ahead if remaining problems are not addressed, and developers were quick to offer advice on what Nokia must do to keep them engaged.

Number one, and perhaps the most perplexing amongst developers identified by Nokia as "best sellers," was a concern about how many downloads these developers were actually getting, and the money they were making as a result.

Amongst developers selling their application less than 20% of developers were either making as much as they had expected or more and over 80% complained that they were making less, and some “far less,” then they had anticipated.

In a competitive marketplace with Google’s Android and Apple’s iPhone luring developers away from Nokia, this has to be Nokia’s number one concern although developers offered many additional suggestions when asked about specific areas of the store and when given the opportunity to make open comments about how Nokia might improve Ovi.

METHODOLOGY:

The findings presented here are taken from a survey conducted between June 1 and June 18, 2010. During that time, 100 Ovi Store publishers responded to a questionnaire, which consisted of 11 multiple-choice questions and 7 essay questions.

Out of the total number of responses received, 20 publishers were interviewed over the phone, while the other 80 publishers responded to an online questionnaire.

The respondents to this survey were not randomly selected but were found through a search for top selling and top free Nokia apps for the 5800 XpressMusic, 5530 XpressMusic, E71, E72, 2700, E61, E63, 7210 SuperNova, 3120 CLASSIC, N73, and N97 Nokia devices. 350 developers were identified through this process.

Participating developers are representative of a sample of app developers and publishers for top Nokia devices across Europe, Asia, America, and Australia.

The Quality Assurance process seems to be causing the most issues to publishers. They often reported “Erratic and inconsistent QA results” and a “lack of arbitration / contact with testers in the quality review process.” Some also said “The submission process is too lengthy and sometimes not transparent. Also there is no clear indication on how to make your content searchable.”

Other comments on the lack of communication from Nokia in the QA process phase were “You don't get any feedback/recommendations on what can be improved when an app is rejected.” “The results from the QA process can need follow-up questions and discussion, and it is not clear how to actually proceed with such issues.”

In general, a frequent comment provided by those who were unhappy with the Content Submission process was: “The whole process is painful with unnecessary steps and prerequisites.”

The Mobile Application Markets developer satisfaction research report is published monthly by Open-First and is generally only available by subscription. This issue, is their first report, is being made available through partnership with MobileBeat free to all. This report is an initial survey of 100 top developers publishing mobile apps to the Nokia Ovi store