Nokia today announced the launch of the Ovi Store football channel featuring exclusive Pepsi content as well as entertainment, apps and information from the world’s most recognized football content providers. The channel leverages Ovi Store’s global reach to offer Nokia football fans around the globe the easiest place to shop for the most popular and most refreshing mobile football content.

Launching today, Nokia’s Ovi Store football channel is the ultimate football fan destination featuring highly popular apps, games, and the ability to quickly personalize and refresh your Nokia.

As part of Ovi’s football offering, Pepsi’s charity football anthem ‘Oh Africa’ will be featured for sale on Ovi Music Store. The charity single performed by six-time Grammy nominee, Akon, featuring Keri Hilson, the Soweto Gospel choir and sixteen youth from around the world is the soundtrack to Pepsi’s 2010 football campaign. In addition, Pepsi’s football athlete themes and wallpapers will be available for free on the Pepsi home page at www.ovi.com

“Pepsi’s unique content combined with Nokia’s unparalleled global reach offers football fans around the world the chance to get involved with this year’s great Football summer no matter where they are,” said Marco Argenti, VP and Global Head of Media, Nokia. “The Ovi Store football promotion offers passionate football fans instant access to news, apps, games and a growing selection of personalization content from some of the world’s top teams.”

Claudia Lagunas, Digital and New Media Director at PepsiCo International commented: “Working with Nokia allows us to connect and communicate with the worldwide mobile community. Nokia’s Ovi Store offers an exciting new channel through which to share our football content with millions of football fans around the globe.”

Also launching today is the Nokia Skill Dribbler competition giving mobile gamers the opportunity to win a Football trip of a lifetime for two to see ‘El Clasico’ in Barcelona. To win, skill dribblers have to show off their silky football game skills, avoiding tackles and keeping control of the ball for as long as they can to accumulate points. The highest weekly scorers will receive a shirt signed by a one of the worlds’ top footballers and Nokia N97 mini. The top scorer of the competition will be on their way to Barcelona. To enter and play Skill Dribbler visit www.ovi.com.

In addition to PepsiCo’s content Nokia’s Ovi Store football channel will also host a long list of further content dedicated to 2010′s summer of football. From competitions and tournament updates to personalizing your device, football is a lot more fun when you are part of the action. Some of the key content and features to get you involved include:

Great goals
If you are supporting Brazil, England, or just great football, Great Goals will whet your appetite for what’s to come with a series of free audio and video downloads dedicated to great goals scored by great players.

Football updates and news
No matter where you are in the world, you can’t catch every game of the tournament but you can still get live updates. 2010′s summer of football news and update applications are available from the largest football websites in the world. Livemobile Football, ESPN Soccernet, and Goal.com are all available as free applications to keep you up to date with breaking news from around the world, previews and recaps of games for all major leagues in the world and more.

Games
Experience the latest in mobile football gaming and battle to win the cup for your country. Games available include Gameloft’s Real Football 2010 and Real Football Manager 2010, and beat the rest in the next generation of sports radar built for speed shooting, Speedhero Multisport, and the latest football games from EA SPORTS.

Touchnote
A picture is worth a thousand words, but reminding everyone your country beat their country with a postcard is priceless. This app takes digital pictures and makes them into physical postcards in a matter of clicks.

Social networking
Whether heading to South Africa or just down the street to your local bar, stay in touch with your friends and family to let them know where you are watching the game. Share your football experience with fans back home, comment on games, post media, and find out where the nearby parties are. Social networks like Nimbuzz and Buddycloud make sharing easy from your Nokia device.

Ovi Maps
Don’t miss the Game because you got lost, Use new Ovi Maps with free walk and drive navigation available on Nokia smartphones to find your way to stadium, bar, park, or wherever you choose to watch the game. After the game, find the best sights, restaurants, hotels and events wherever you are through the Lonely Planet and Michelin travel guides that come free with the new Ovi Maps. To download Ovi Maps, visit www.store.ovi.com.

With the Nokia N8, people can create compelling content, connect to their favorite social networks and enjoy on-demand Web TV programs and Ovi Store apps. Available in select markets during the third quarter of 2010, the estimated retail price of the Nokia N8 is EUR 370, before applicable taxes or subsidies.

The Nokia N8 introduces a 12 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, Xenon flash and a large sensor that rivals those found in compact digital cameras.

Additionally, the Nokia N8 offers the ability to make HD-quality videos and edit them with an intuitive built-in editing suite. Doubling as a portable entertainment center, people can enjoy HD-quality video with Dolby Digital Plus surround sound by plugging into their home theatre system.

The Nokia N8 enables access to Web TV services that deliver programs, news and entertainment from channels like CNN, E! Entertainment, Paramount and National Geographic. Additional local Web TV content is also available from the Ovi Store.

Microsoft and Nokia launched the first application from their alliance around mobile productivity, Microsoft Communicator Mobile for Nokia devices. This new unified communications client connects directly with a company’s communications systems to streamline mobile collaboration. Owners of a number of Symbian based Nokia Eseries smartphones can download the English version today from Nokia’s Ovi Store, the easiest place to get content on their Nokia device.

“Our alliance with Nokia aims to bring the Office productivity experience to the millions of people using Nokia smartphones around the world,” says Kirt Debique, General Manager at Microsoft. “With the arrival of Communicator Mobile for Nokia today, we have a great start to fulfilling our joint vision.”

Communicator Mobile enables people to see their colleagues’ availability, and click to communicate with them using the best method, from IM to email, text to phone call. The names and status of colleagues are embedded directly into the devices’ contacts application, enabling people to update their own presence, start and join instant messaging sessions, and begin calls directly from the contact card.

“This application really provides a much more efficient way to work with others as you can see if someone is busy or available, and the best way to start a conversation with them,” says Ukko Lappalainen, Vice President at Nokia. “It also meets all of the requirements for enterprise: cost effective to implement, secure, familiar and reliable.”

The launch is the first product from the alliance – announced last August – which was the first time either company had embarked on an agreement of this scope and nature. Since then, the two companies have been collaborating on the design and development of new solutions, as well as embarking on joint marketing efforts around others they already share.

“As part of our push to constantly enhance our unified communications proposition, we are keen to extend the collaborative benefits of Microsoft Communicator Mobile to Nokia devices,” says Scott Petty, Director at Vodafone Group Business Services. “Communicator Mobile offers great potential for our large corporate customer base who have already deployed Communicator for desktop and now are looking to extend that existing infrastructure to mobile.”

“We trial all potential offerings ourselves and have been very happy with the internal response and productivity increase we have experienced using Microsoft Communicator Mobile,” says Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler, Executive Vice President at Swisscom / Webcall. “Having these two companies work together is really helping us serve the needs of our customers.”

This new application, available initially for Nokia E72 and Nokia E52, adds to the work Nokia is already doing in optimizing direct access to email and other personal information with Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. The companies plan to deliver Communicator Mobile for Nokia pre-installed on select Nokia smartphones in the future and plan to support additional devices, including the recently announced Nokia E5.

Nokia’s global mobile music leadership underlined with launch of DRM-free Comes With Music -service for millions of consumers in China.

Nokia today further increases its global footprint in the mobile music space with the launch of its ground breaking service, ‘Comes With Music’, in China. This announcement sees China’s number one mobile brand drive further innovation in the music space by introducing the first device and PC-based free, legal, DRM-free music download service in the world’s biggest mobile market.

The launch of Nokia’s unlimited music download offering in China adds further momentum to Nokia’s leadership in the world’s highest growth markets including Brazil, Russia and Indonesia. The forthcoming launch of the service in India will add significant scale and differentiation in another critical market.

In a local partnership with Huadong Feitian, the China launch further showcases Nokia’s expertise in delivering music services, tailored to local consumer needs. The service delivers a rich catalogue of local artists, unique features developed for the Chinese market, and a seamless, high quality music download experience.

Comes With Music will be available to consumers across China via a broad range of devices and through an extensive nationwide retail network. At launch, consumers can get unlimited music downloads with the purchase of any one of eight devices, to include the Nokia X6 32GB and Nokia X6 16GB, Nokia 5230, Nokia 5330, Nokia 5800w, Nokia 6700s, Nokia E52 and Nokia E72i. Entry level prices will start from EUR 140, excluding local taxes and subsidies.

“This launch delivers a truly mass market music offering from China’s most loved mobile brand. Our broad range of Comes With Music enabled devices and the high quality, DRM-free catalogue form the perfect legal download recipe for the world’s biggest market for mobile phones,” says Liz Schimel, Global Head of Music, Nokia. “Globally, we have expanded the reach of our music service to 30 markets in just 18 months. We are excited to see consumers building collections of the music they love through our service, and we are firmly on the path to delivering legal digital music to all parts of the world. It’s fantastic to have so many local and global labels partner with us to deliver this service in China. The industry came together to support us in innovating the mobile music business model in this unique market.”

The service will include catalogues from the major global labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, EMI Music, and a host of local independent labels, including Huayi Brothers Media Group and Taihe Rye.

“China is a massive opportunity and a challenging market to address. Nokia is the undisputed dominant mobile player within China – there is no better partner with whom to develop the market in new, imaginative ways and make the most of its potential,” says Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, Universal Music Group International.

“We are delighted to be expanding our partnership with Nokia to bring Comes With Music to the Chinese market,” says Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy, Sony Music Entertainment. “We think there is great potential to convert China’s massive audience of music fans into consumers of legitimate digital music with compelling services that are easy-to-use and broadly available across a wide array of mobile devices.”

Song Ke, CEO, Taihe Rye, says; “We are very excited by the opportunity to have our music catalogue not only available in China, but to the rest of the world. Lovers of Chinese music can now download content from Comes With Music, broadening the market for our artists globally.”

“Establishing legitimate online music services in emerging markets is imperative for the music industry’s ongoing effort to remake itself,” says Mike McGuire, Research Vice President, Media IAS Team, Gartner. “By getting the Comes with Music service up and running in China, and with India coming on shortly, Nokia is taking important steps in continuing to expand its Comes With Music ecosystem. It’s also playing an important role in developing compelling alternatives for both artists and labels, and consumers.”

Nokia has today announced plans to release a new version of Ovi Maps for its smartphones that includes high-end walk and drive navigation at no extra cost, available for download at www.nokia.com/maps. This move has the potential to nearly double the size of the current mobile navigation market. The new version of Ovi Maps 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.

“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. Unlike the legacy car navigation manufacturers, we don’t make you buy maps for different countries or regions even if you’re only visiting for a few days. We offer both navigation and maps free of charge, with all the high-end functionality and features that people now expect.”

“The large-scale availability of free-of-charge mobile phone navigation offerings using high-quality map data will be a game changer for the navigation industry,” said Thilo Koslowski, Vice President Automotive and Vehicle ICT at Gartner. “Such offerings will accelerate mass market adoption for navigation solutions and shift innovation focus to location-based services that go beyond traditional routing benefits.”

For Nokia, removing the costs associated with navigation for drivers and pedestrians allows the company to quickly activate a massive user base to which it can offer new location features, content and services. This is part of Nokia’s strategy to lead the market in mobile maps, navigation and location-based services. The move is also in line with Nokia’s vision that the next wave of growth will be centered on the location-aware, social internet — as the ‘where’ people are doing things becomes as important as the ‘what’ they are doing.

According to research firm Canalys, the number of people worldwide using GPS navigation on their mobile phones was approximately 27 million at the end of 2009. With this announcement 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 navigation through 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.

“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:

Nokia believes it will enable them 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. By using advanced vector graphics, plus an intelligent combination of pre-loaded and online maps, the new version of Ovi Maps uses a fraction of the bandwidth of the bulky bitmap technology used by most mobile map providers.

- For 3rd party application developers:

Making navigation on a mobile as familiar as sending a text or taking a picture presents a huge opportunity as the customer base for additional location-based applications expands. Via the Ovi for Developers Beta Program, Nokia has given selected developers and publishers a preview of the Ovi APIs and SDK – Beta (software development kit) which will allow them to build such applications. These will then be made available through Ovi Store by Nokia.

Ovi Maps is immediately 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. In the meantime, current owners of Nokia smartphones that are compatible with the new Ovi Maps can download it free of charge from www.nokia.com/maps.

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

Ovi Maps covers more than 180 countries with car and pedestrian navigation for 74 countries in 46 languages and 6000 3D landmarks for 200 cities around the world. Lonely Planet and Michelin guides have information on more than 1,000 destinations globally.

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

The service provides timely and relevant information customized to the user’s location and personal preferences directly on their mobile phones.

Nokia Life Tools Agriculture services aim to plug the information gaps and needs of farmers, by providing information on seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, market prices, and weather (temperature, rainfall, wind conditions) via their mobile phones.

Nokia Life Tools Education services aim to provide career and education services, including English language learning, General Knowledge, Exam preparations and results, as well as career information and tips.

Nokia Life Tools Entertainment services also has fun features, including astrology, news, ringtones and more.

Nokia Life Tools is an icon-led, graphically rich application. The service is easy to use with the capability to display two different languages simultaneously on the same screen, thereby enhancing usability. The service is not dependant on the customers ability to insert complex settings or have access to GPRS on their mobile phones . Once the Nokia life Tools application is activated ,the customer can begin to use the service seamlessly.

The Nokia 7020 is a fashionable fold phone that uses light, color and metal finishes to convey personal style, you will never miss a thing with the stardust effect when you get a call or message, or tap twice to have the cover light up.

Connect to social networks, and share pictures taken with the 2 mega pixel camera and shown on the bright display.

The Nokia 7020 is expected to beging shipping in the fourth quarter of 2009 for an estimated retail price of EUR 90 before subsidies and taxes.

The Nokia 2720 fold is a compact fold phone with an exciting mirror-effect design, which helps people stay organized with easy access to email, calendar, Internet connectivity and file sharing applications.

Email can be activated by completing a simple three step set-up process, and in select markets will be offered with Nokia Life Tools.

The Nokia 2720 fold is expected to begin shipping in the third quarter of 2009 for an estimated retail price of EUR 55 before subsidies and taxes.

Join the other 400 million Skype users Worldwide with an internet phone like the LG Renoir Mobile Phone and you will be able to talk for free.

Three mobile phones are offer 200 free minutes, free texts, unlimited email and Internet access with free calls forever with Skype.

This is probably one of the best things that a mobile phone provider has done with a mobile phone and the Internet, with most phones having such a small screen thereby making it almost impossible to browse the internet.

Three Mobile Phones are always leading the field when it comes to pushing down mobile phone costs – there were many that said Three would not last, but here they are a few years later still going strong and leading the field yet again.