A download a second for Nokia Ovi Maps

Two weeks after Nokia made its new version of Ovi Maps with walking and driving navigation free for users globally, 1.4 million downloads have been made. Nokia said this in a press statement, adding that the one million mark was reached within a week since the announcement on January 21.
The new version of Ovi Maps included car and pedestrian navigation with turn-by-turn voice guidance for 74 countries, in 46 languages, and traffic information for more than 10 countries, and detailed maps for 180 countries.
Interestingly, Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice-president, Nokia, stated, “We’re averaging a download a second, 24 hours a day.”
“When we announced free walk and drive navigation we knew it would be a game-changer. The number of people now using their Nokia for navigation, and as a result looking for more location-aware software, is growing faster than even we predicted,” he added.
“For the operators too there is a growing opportunity to sell more data-plans and a complete navigation package to existing and new customers,” added Vanjoki.
According to research firm Canalys, the number of people worldwide using GPS navigation on their mobile phones was 27 million at the end of 2009. Nokia claims that with the availability of its free navigation, the market size has increased by 50 million given the original number of users who had installed Ovi Maps. The report also estimated that the installed base of smartphones with integrated GPS (global positioning system, which does not require an operator network) was 163 million units worldwide, of which Nokia accounted for 51 per cent, having shipped 83 million GPS devices.
“There is a huge appetite for GPS navigation on mobile phones. We estimate there were already 25.9 million people actively using GPS navigation on their mobile phones at the end of 2009,” added Chris Jones, vice-president and principal analyst at Canalys.
According to Nokia, as on January 31, the top five countries downloading the new version of Ovi Maps were China, Italy, UK, Germany and Spain. The top five most popular Nokia devices installing the service were Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia N97 mini, Nokia N97, Nokia 5230 and Nokia E72. The application is only compatible with 11 Nokia smartphones as of now.
March onwards, Nokia will be shipping all its Nokia GPS-enabled smartphones with Ovi Maps with local country map data, walk and drive navigation and access to Lonely Planet and Michelin travel guides for free. Google had also launched driving directions for Indian mobile users in December 2009.