Ovi Mail - 1 million accounts activated

Published by Rafe Blandford at 13:03 UTC, August 11th 2009

Nokia today announced that it has reached the mile stone of one million activated Ovi Mail accounts in just over six months. Of these accounts 650,000 have been created on a mobile device. Nokia says Ovi Mail 'is quickly establishing itself as the email account for the developing world', underlining that, with Ovi Mail, people can get their first email address, set up and manage email entirely on their phone, without any need for a PC.

one million activated accounts is an impressive achievement, especially given Nokia have yet to put a significant marketing campaign behind Ovi Mail. However, to put this in context, Hotmail has 343 million users, Yahoo Mail has 285 million and Gmail has 146 million (source: Comscore, July 2009). Clearly there's plenty of growth potential ahead.

Ovi Mail, perhaps more than any other Ovi service, demonstrates Nokia's determination to bring services to its entire portfolio of devices. Ovi Mail is primarily targeted at first time email users. Nokia Messaging, by contrast, is targeted at those who already have an email address, but want to access it from their phone. Nokia are gradually rolling out more devices with Ovi Mail and Nokia Messaging built in to the standard email wizard / set up process, but there is still some way to go.

Here's an extract form the press release:

"More than just reaching a company milestone, this proves to us that there is a real appetite in the developing world for these types of tailored services," said Tom Furlong, head of Consumer Messaging at Nokia. "For first-time email users, Ovi Mail provides a digital identity and we are thrilled by its rapidly rising adoption rate."

The inspiration for Ovi Mail came from the growing number of people, mostly in developing countries, without access to a PC. The top five countries for Ovi Mail subscribers are India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and South Africa. Since its inception in December 2008, Ovi Mail is available in more than 180 countries and supports 20 languages.

Ovi Mail is free to set-up straight out of the box and comes with spam filters to block unwanted emails. It is also accessible from a broad range of Nokia devices with the Nokia 2330 classic, Nokia 2630 and Nokia 5310 XpressMusic being some of the most popular devices used.

Ovi Mail can be set up from the email wizard of most recent Nokia phones, or by visiting mail.ovi.com.

News Discussion

Unregistered

Great number, very good statistics :)
I have activated my account out of curiosity. Unfortunately Ovi mail is absolutely terrible comparing to Gmail or Fastmail. Never used it again. I would guess it's the same for other 900000 users :-)
Another example of Nokia's focus on non essential things - why duplicate existing services (and not very well) instead of working with them?

viipottaja

I should not say this but I think you are missing the point. The service is targeted mostly for low end S40 devices (just look at which phones were used most) with a stated objective to be simple and straightforward (i.e. not even trying to compete with existing full feature services).

Did you try it on a 2630? The fairly significant uptake in developing countries clearly shows this not non essential to them, nor is it duplicating existing services.

Unregistered

viipottaja, so what kind of users is Nokia targeting? Those who do not use email at all and will somehow start their email "live" on Ovi (on very small cheap phone screen)? Or maybe people who already have some email account, just have no idea if and how it can be used on the mobile phone?

In my opinion first group will be very small, second group will not switch to Ovi (new address etc).

I would guess most of "one million" people are advanced users with existing Ovi accounts, trying Ovi mial on their computer :)

Unregistered

Self answer :
It is group number one :) (no email no computer)

Only 350000 of one million are advanced user in fact :)
We will see how it goes.

gkiharo

Hey, I do know how to use email. It so happens that this (ovi mail) is easy for me to use. And I do like it, despite its flaws. I set it up on my S40 phone. I only use it on my phone, and I agree that the webmail version is terrible. I actively avoid using it as much as possible. Just my two cents.

Unregistered

Ovi Mail is probably the one thing that works much of the time. All in all Ovi seems more like a science project or hobby than a real attempt at creating something of value. Look at Gmail, or MobileMe. They work, and there is an attempt by Google and Apple to add value. Nokia has missed the boat again. They should dump Ovi faster than a cat can lick its ass and take a long hard look at their forums. Android, and the iPhone are about to bring the pain with the next releases while the N97 is mired in scratched lenses, low ram, USB, and BT issues. Nokia is simply not trying anymore.

Unregistered

Lol, "bring the pain", "drop the ball"

We've got a real mobile expert here.

sapporobaby

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Lol, "bring the pain", "drop the ball"

We've got a real mobile expert here.

Meaning what?

I have to agree. For the most part Ovi is not really a service but a group of ideas that probably should not have seen the light of day. Mail is not a bad app. Not as configurable as I would like but it is in my opinion miles ahead of the rest of the Ovi crap.

Full thread: 8 Comments / Post New Comment