Now, Nokia Calling Kraft, Red Bull and Voddler
In a sluggish mobile market, mobile phone maker Nokia is joining hands with other companies – left, right and centre – to stay ahead in a marketplace deluged with countless mobile phones from rival players. The company announced new strategic partnerships with leading brands today, Feb. 29, during Mobile World Congress event.
“We’re delighted to announce new, breakthrough partnerships with leading brands including Kraft, Red Bull and Voddler. Nokia is working rapidly to provide developers, carriers and partners with a powerful business platform to generate incremental revenue opportunities,” said Marco Argenti, senior VP, Nokia Developer Experience & Marketplace.
Meanwhile, Nokia has planned changes at its factories in Komarom, Hungary, Reynosa, Mexico and Salo, Finland. As a consequence of the plans, the number of steps in manufacturing and the amount of work carried out at the sites in Komarom, Reynosa and Salo are expected to decrease substantially. The changes are anticipated to impact approximately 4,000 employees in total. (Read: Nokia’s New Plans to Impact 4,000 Employees)
Nokia says it has an expanding range of revenue tools available to help developers be successful. In-app purchase revenue tools for Series 40 and Qt enable developers to generate new, incremental revenues by leveraging Nokia’s expanded operator billing integrations, where consumers can add purchases to their phone bill rather than pay with a credit card.
[ Also Read: Orange to Offer Visa Mobile Prepaid Accounts ]Nokia now has operator billing integrations with 150 operators across 40 markets around the world. Additionally, across Series 40 and Qt, In-app advertising brings further monetization opportunities, while tools including In-app advertising, Try & Buy or ‘Freemium’, and In App Advertising enable developers to more easily monetize apps created for Windows Phone.
The company says Nokia Store continues to increase its popularity amongst consumers, this month reaching a new milestone of 13 million daily downloads. The percentage of downloads made by consumers using Series 40-based feature phones has grown by 250% in a year, with the platform now accounting for more than 30% of the total daily Nokia Store downloads.
A year after Nokia and Microsoft announced their partnership, a number of Windows Phone Marketplace milestones have also been reached. The number of apps published daily in Marketplace has grown by 300% in the past 12 months, with Marketplace now home to 65,000 apps and counting, it was stated by Nokia.
Driving further momentum in the Windows Phone Marketplace, Nokia this week announced a number of new partnerships which will bring new mobile experiences from top brands exclusively to Nokia consumers before they are made more widely available to all Windows Phone consumers through Marketplace.
Kraft Foods and Nokia join forces to create the Kraft Foods Nokia Mobile Innovation Lab. Both Nokia and Kraft Foods will work to leverage Nokia and Microsoft’s cross-platform ecosystem to include mobile devices, PCs, TVs, Xbox and other networked connected devices, such as cars.
[ Also Read: Nokia’s Hopes Pinned on Asha Feature Phones ]And Red Bull Media House and Nokia have announced a Signature Partnership focused on bringing the World of Red Bull to customers via Nokia handsets globally.
A leading next-generation video-on-demand (VOD) service Voddler and Nokia plan to launch European-wide partnership, starting with unique Lumia-app.
Moreover, a new app from The Weather Channel will take the mobile weather experience to the next level. New features, exclusive to Nokia Lumia users, include full-screen interactive maps, Facebook & email sharing, Live Tiles, local video and more, the apps will provide hourly, 36-hour and 10-day forecasts.
Photo courtesy: Nokia
