The Ovi Store numbers should be seen in the wider context of competing app stores. There are approximately 12 million downloads a day from the Apple App Store and a total of around 7.5 billion downloads. For the Android Marketplace there are around 10 million downloads a day and a total of around 2 billion downloads. GetJar has over 3 million daily downloads and approximately 1.3 billion downloads in total. RIM's Blackberry App World currently has around 1.6 million downloads a day.
When looking at these statistics it is important to consider that there's no universally agreed definition of a download. For example, Android Marketplace and Apple App store numbers may include application/game updates. Ovi Store's number includes content from the Personalisation and Audio & Video categories (combined, they make up around 20-25% of downloads from Ovi Store). Moreover, both Android and Nokia allow for applications to be installed from sources other than their official app stores.
In terms of downloads per day, Ovi Store looks set to overtake GetJar in November. This is still some way behind the Apple App Store and Android Marketplace, both of which continue to grow strongly. However, Ovi Store's faster growth rate should see it narrow the gap with its two biggest competitors over the next 12 months. The introduction of Symbian^3 devices (from now onwards) and the emphasis on Qt (Q1 2011 onwards) should help Nokia sustain or even increase the current growth rate of the Ovi Store.
The 3 million downloads a day mark means that Ovi Store now has an annualised download rate of more than 1 billion. This is equivalent to 34 downloads every second, 2,000 every minute and 125,000 every hour.
It's worth noting that Ovi Store has far fewer items available for download when compared to its competitors (by a factor of 25 or more). This means that the number of downloads per content item is higher in the Ovi Store; which is a noteworthy fact for developers. It also means that the overall number of downloads is not directly proportional to available content items, suggesting the use of the number of content items metric is of limited use in direct comparisons (past a certain point).
In terms of total downloads, Ovi Store is further behind its competitors, reflecting its relatively late arrival on the scene. However, with the steadily growing daily download rate, the total downloads number is rising rapidly and will very likely surpass the 1 billion figure in Q1 2011. Our estimated figure for total Ovi Store downloads, 710 million, is based on the figures released by Nokia over the last 18 months.
Ewan's comments
Nokia would like you to take note of the 92 developers who have gathered one million downloads from their portfolios; 400,000 new developers in the last twelve months; the 1.5 million downloads of the Qt SDK and the potentially faster and more efficient development cycle that Qt offers.
Smart eyed readers of the press release linked below will spot that, while highlights and big numbers are there, it’s very hard to correlate these down to numbers that could be used for any deep analysis. It’s all well and good knowing that Angry Birds is the top downloaded paid-for app, but has it broken a million? Are Rovio one of the 92 developers mentioned above?
Crazy Hamster has 200,000 downloads at £1 each, so how much has this developer (or others) made? If there’s one thing that will get developers interested in any platform it’s financial gain. Nokia, show them the money!
Nokia do have a story to tell about the Ovi Store though. While it would be nice to have more information, which would stop everyone looking for what Nokia haven't said yet, let's allow them to tell the story at their own pace.
More from the Nokia press release.