Published:
22-May-08
Nokia and Orange have extended the original agreement reached by the companies in February 2008 into a 3 year partnership. As a result of the deal, 10 new Nokia handsets will be introduced into the Orange device range. Consumers will have access to Orange Music Store, Orange and NGage games, and Nokia Maps. These integrated handsets are set to be released in the second half of 2008 in nine major markets. The companies aim to create 10m active users of the mobile maps service from Orange subscribers by 2010.
Our take...
No mention is made of the Nokia Music Store, part of the Ovi offering. Only Orange's own mobile music service is mentioned. Whether this means that the deal involves a reduced Ovi content offering is unclear. At the launch of Nokia's Music Store in November 2007, only Vodafone and O2 were willing to take on the Music Store enabled devices in the UK. Nokia has persisted in rolling out the Music Store and following its recent launch in Sweden, it is now live in 10 countries. Following this partnership with Orange and a similar deal with T-Mobile earlier this month, it seems that Nokia's persistent approach may have paid off with more operators now accepting the devices.
France,
UK,
Spain,
Belgium,
Netherlands,
Switzerland,
