Jakarta Globe, Shirley Christie | November 23, 2010
Jakarta. Struggling mobile phone giant Nokia plans to allow cellphone operators to bypass credit cards and deduct the cost of downloaded applications directly from users in Indonesia next year.
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| A Nokia E75 mobile phone is being used in this file photo. Nokia say that distribution of phone apps will be conducted via 'operator billing' which allows even prepaid users to buy. (AFP Photo/Lehtikuva/Antti Aimo-Koivisto) |
Dubbed “operator billing,” it makes it easier for software vendors to sell applications directly to users through Nokia’s Ovi Store without the hassle of credit cards.
Nokia also promises a minimum 60 percent revenue share for developers, considerably more than many current arrangements.
During a press briefing in Jakarta last week, Kenny Mathers, head of developer relations for Forum Nokia Asia Pacific, said the company’s Ovi Store was the only mobile application store in the world to offer operator billing.
With low credit card penetration often cited as a barrier to customers buying mobile applications in Indonesia, Nokia said operator billing should eliminate that hurdle, even for prepaid users, since the cost of applications can be deducted directly from a user’s mobile phone credit.
“Our research shows that two out of three people choose to pay with operator billing instead of credit card billing,” Mathers said.
Nokia began the program with the launch of the Ovi Store in May 2009. It has deals with 99 cellphone providers in 29 countries to offer operator billing.
However, the company refused to say which cellphone operators it would be working with in the Indonesian market or give an exact date for the launch of the service here.
Local software start-up Swamedia, which currently offers its Shopping Planner and two other applications for free through the Ovi Store worldwide, hopes operator billing will allow it to generate online revenue.
Deded, Swamedia’s account manager, says the company is currently just seeking global recognition on the Ovi Store but will soon start charging customers for its applications.
For Nokia, giving developers a bigger share of the revenue pie is a way to try and reverse the ongoing slide of its Symbian operating system, which has seen an 8 percent market share decline in the last year, largely due to the rise of Google’s open source Android system.
In the third quarter of 2010, Symbian had a 36.6 percent market share worldwide, compared to 25.5 percent for Android.
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