The company on Tuesday launched Ovi Life Tools, its leading emerging market information service in Lagos.
The African launch follows hot on the heels of highly successful launches over the last year in Indonesia, India and China. Today, Ovi Life Tools has over 6.3 million users globally, and the introduction of this service in Africa further extends Nokia’s reach in emerging markets.
Nokia’s head of Mobile Phone Services, Dieter May, said following the launch, “This is another important milestone for Nokia as we continue to expand our services in emerging markets. Farmers will be able to check market prices without traveling long distances, people will be able to find important information to stay healthy and students will be able to learn English and improve their general knowledge at their own pace. All of this on easy-to-use and affordable mobile phones.”
Ovi’s Life Tools will enable people in Nigeria access to a wide range of services and information on their mobile phones. These include healthcare services, agriculture services, market prices, news and advice on weather, education services and entertainment.
May continued: “We have made sure that the service is locally relevant. The agriculture service provides prices on 25 different commodities including cocoa, beniseed (sesame) and fish to name a few, and covers all 36 states in Nigeria. But people also want to have fun, so in football crazed Nigeria we have made sure that the news and entertainment service includes the latest results from the European leagues and from the national team. Affordability is also critical. With almost 30 percent of the population below the poverty line, every cent makes a huge difference to people’s household budgets, so we have set out to build a service that is able to further improve their quality of life for just 1 Euro per month.”
Nokia’s Ovi Life Tools in Nigeria will be offered on the Nokia 2690 and on the Nokia C1-01 through two of Nigeria’s largest operators, Zain/Airtel and Glo Mobile, at the price of NGN 250 (EUR 1.25) for the agriculture service and NGN 200 (EUR 1) per month for all other subscriptions. It will be available countrywide in Nigeria in three languages – English, Hausa and Pidgin English.
