Ovi

Nokia's "door" to internet services, an app store, maps, mail and music brand for the Symbian years, dropped in 2011 and closed for good in 2015

Shut down
19902026

Ovi (Finnish for door) was Nokia's umbrella brand for internet services, launched on 29 August 2007 and covering the Ovi Store, Ovi Maps, Ovi Mail, Ovi Music, Ovi Share and Ovi Files for Symbian and Series 40 phones. The Ovi Store opened on 26 May 2009 and by 2011 was serving millions of downloads a day. Nokia retired the brand on 16 May 2011 after switching to Windows Phone; the renamed Nokia Store was closed by Microsoft in March 2015 in favour of the Opera Mobile Store.

Timeline [edit]

  1. 2007
  2. 29 August 2007 Launch
    Ovi announced at Go Play, London

    One brand for music, games and maps.

  3. 2008
  4. 2 December 2008 Feature
    Ovi Mail

    Free webmail for first-time internet users.

  5. 2009
  6. 26 May 2009 Launch
    Ovi Store opens

    Servers buckle on day one.

  7. 2010
  8. 21 January 2010 Feature
    Ovi Maps navigation goes free

    Turn-by-turn on Nokia smartphones at no charge.

  9. 2011
  10. 11 February 2011 other
    Nokia chooses Windows Phone

    The "burning platform" decision.

  11. 16 May 2011 Rebrand
    Ovi brand retired

    Ovi Store becomes Nokia Store from July 2011.

  12. 2014
  13. 25 April 2014 Acquisition
    Microsoft completes the Nokia deal

    Nokia Store passes to Microsoft Mobile.

  14. 19 November 2014 Shutdown announced
    Nokia Store to be replaced by Opera Mobile Store

    Closure planned for the first half of 2015.

  15. 2015
  16. 3 March 2015 Shutdown
    Nokia Store closes

    The last of the Ovi services.

The site through time

Browse ovi.com as it was, via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine:

2007 2009 2011 2013 2015 Full archive →

Ownership [edit]

Nokia 2007–2014 Founded Ovi brand retired from July 2011; services continued as Nokia Store, Nokia Maps, Nokia Mail
Microsoft (Microsoft Mobile) 2014–2015 Acquisition Bought Nokia's devices business; closed the Nokia Store in March 2015

Why it shut down [edit]

Official line: On 16 May 2011, three months after Nokia chose Windows Phone over Symbian, it announced that the Ovi brand would be phased out and its services renamed Nokia Store, Nokia Maps, Nokia Mail and so on, starting in July 2011. Ovi Mail was handed to Yahoo, Ovi Share and Ovi Files were closed, and Ovi Maps became HERE. Under Microsoft, which bought Nokia's phone business in April 2014, the Nokia Store stopped taking new apps at the start of 2015 and was closed in early March 2015, with Symbian, Asha and Series 40 users redirected to the Opera Mobile Store.

Our analysis: Ovi was Nokia's answer to the iPhone and the App Store, and for a while its numbers were real: the store hit millions of downloads a day and Ovi Maps with free navigation in January 2010 was a genuine coup. But it was built on Symbian, and when Stephen Elop wrote the "burning platform" memo and picked Windows Phone in February 2011 the store had no future device to serve. The brand went first, the services followed as Symbian faded, and Microsoft closed the last of it once the phones it served were out of production.

History [edit]

A door, not a device

Nokia unveiled Ovi at its Go Play event in London on 29 August 2007, two months after the first iPhone shipped. Ovi is Finnish for door, and the idea was one brand for everything Nokia did on the internet: the Nokia Music Store, N-Gage games, Nokia Maps and, from 2008, Ovi Share (photos, from the Twango acquisition), Ovi Files, Ovi Mail (a free webmail aimed at first-time internet users in emerging markets, which had five million accounts by early 2010) and Ovi Contacts. Ovi Suite replaced PC Suite on the desktop.

The Ovi Store, announced in February 2009 and launched on 26 May 2009, was the piece that mattered. Its first day was a well-publicised failure, with sign-in errors and servers buckling, but it grew: a million downloads a day by early 2010, 2.5 million by August 2010, five million a day by mid-2011, and it was strongest in exactly the markets, India, China, Indonesia, where the iPhone was not. On 21 January 2010 Nokia made Ovi Maps turn-by-turn navigation free on its smartphones, wiping billions off TomTom and Garmin overnight and giving Ovi its best day.

The brand goes, then the store

On 11 February 2011 Nokia announced its move to Windows Phone, and on 16 May 2011 it said the Ovi name would be phased out from July, with services renamed Nokia Store, Nokia Maps, Nokia Music. Ovi Mail and Chat migrated to Yahoo. Ovi Share and Ovi Files were shut down in 2012, Nokia Maps became HERE in November 2012, and the Nokia Store carried on for Symbian, Series 40, Asha and the Android-based Nokia X phones, peaking at more than 15 million downloads a day in late 2012.

Microsoft bought Nokia's devices business on 25 April 2014. In November 2014 it announced that the Nokia Store would be replaced by the Opera Mobile Store: no new apps or updates from early 2015, then a redirect. The store closed in the first days of March 2015. Symbian users lost their download history; the store.ovi.com URLs stopped resolving. HERE, sold to the German carmakers in December 2015, is the only Ovi service still alive, under a name that no longer mentions Nokia.

The domain today

ovi.com and store.ovi.com no longer resolve.

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Sources [edit]

  1. Ovi knocking at the door TechCrunch 29 August 2007 [archived]
  2. Nokia's Ovi unleashed: stay calm, it's only a brand Engadget 29 August 2007 [archived]
  3. Nokia lays plan for more Internet services The New York Times (IDG News Service) 4 December 2007 [archived]
  4. Nokia World 2008: keynote summary TechCrunch 2 December 2008 [archived]
  5. Nokia unveils Ovi Store, application sales to debut in May TechCrunch 16 February 2009 [archived]
  6. Nokia Ovi Store launch is a complete disaster TechCrunch 26 May 2009 [archived]
  7. Nokia's app store: a work in progress Forbes 26 May 2009 [archived]
  8. Nokia rebrands Ovi amid rumors of Microsoft purchase GigaOm 16 May 2011 [archived]
  9. Nokia Store will shut in mid-2015, users redirected to Opera Mobile Store PocketGamer.biz 19 November 2014 [archived]
  10. The Nokia Store is no more All About Symbian 3 March 2015 [archived]

Last verified: 16 August 2026. Spotted an error? Suggest an edit (corrections with sources are reviewed and applied).