Nokia Ovi Maps downloaded by one million people in a week

`Nokia now have reach to the level of Iphone. How is that? An update to the Ovi Maps app that works on a range of Nokia phones was launched last week and has already been snapped up by more than a million happy navigators

The free update features turn-by-turn navigation for walkers or drivers, bringing Nokia users on to a par with Android customers. Both groups can now sneer down their thrifty noses at iPhone users who have to pay anything between £1.79 for MotionX, £59.99 for TomTom’s excellent, but now very expensive-feeling, program.

Not only with the availability of touchscreen phone, the list the features are excellent and the weather report is available free with the street directory.

Despite Steve Jobs’s claim that Apple is the world’s largest mobile devices manufacturer Nokia is still by far the biggest producer of mobile phones with 38 per cent of the market, almost twice that of Samsung, their nearest rival, who lay claim to 20 per cent. Even in the much smaller smartphone sector Nokia outsells Apple by well over two to one: Nokia sold 20.8 million in the last quarter of 2009 against Apple’s 8.7 million.

As apps form one of the main planks of Apple’s mobile strategy, a policy of offering free versions of functions that fashion-forward iPhone users have to pay for could reward Nokia with even higher sales and yet more revenue.