Mobile News

Over 27 million people worldwide are using GPS navigation on their mobile phones. These were the numbers for the end of 2009. Nokia aims to double it by launching the new enhanced version of Ovi Maps and offering it absolutely free.

The new version includes high-end car and pedestrian navigation features, such as turn-by-turn voice guidance for 74 countries, in 46 languages, and traffic information for more than 10 countries, as well as detailed maps for more than 180 countries. There are 6000 3D landmarks for 200 cities around the world.

Nokia potentially grows the size of this installed user base to about 50 million by enabling smartphone owners, with compatible devices and devices that will be made compatible shortly to activate free drive and walk navigationthrough a simple download of the new Ovi Maps. Nokia will further grow this base as it quickly adds more smartphones to the compatible devices list. Canalys also estimated in 2009 that the installed base of smartphones with integrated GPS was 163 million units worldwide, of which Nokia accounted for more than half (51%) having shipped cumulatively  83 million GPS devices.

"Why have multiple devices that work that work in only one country or region? Put it all together, make it free, make it global and you almost double the potential size of the mobile navigation market ," explained Anssi Vanjoki, Executive Vice President, Nokia. "Nokia is the only company with a mobile navigation service for both drivers and pedestrians that works across the world. We offer both navigation and maps free of charge, with all the high-end functionality and features that people now expect."

"This is a game changing move. By leveraging our NAVTEQ acquisition, and our context sensitive service offering, we can now put a complete navigation system in the palm of your hand, wherever in the world you are, whenever you need it - and at no extra cost," continued Anssi Vanjoki. "By adding cameras at no extra cost to our phones we quickly became the biggest camera manufacturer in the world. The aim of the new Ovi Maps is to enable us to do the same for navigation."

By removing the added costs for consumers Nokia expects to fuel the take-up of mobile maps and navigation providing its ecosystem of partners with clear business opportunities for operators and 3rd party application developers. The company believes the new service will enable telecom operators to offer their customers a complete car and personal navigation package as well as encourage the take-up of data plans. An additional benefit for operators is that Ovi Maps uses a unique hybrid technology that is optimized for use on a mobile network.

Ovi Maps is now available for download for 10 Nokia handsets, including the popular Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and Nokia E72, with more Nokia smartphones expected to be added in the coming weeks. See links below >>>

From March 2010, the new Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones will include a new version of Ovi Maps, pre-loaded with local country map data, high-end walk and drive navigation and access to Lonely Planet and Michelin travel guides at no extra cost.

We are sure thet Nokia's announcement cannot be well received by traditional navigation device manufacturers such as TomTom and Garmin... but they are welcomed by the users and this is more important for us. After Google launched a similar free mapping service for its Android phones and now Nokia proceeds with its free Ovi maps we can already count on fully updated and totally free Navigation services. I think this is the future, don't you?

Current list of compatible Nokia devices: Nokia N97 mini, Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, Nokia E52, Nokia E55, Nokia E72, Nokia 5230, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 6730 classic and Nokia X6. For the latest device list, please go to http://www.nokia.com/maps