Nokia started on Monday the roll-out of Ovi Store, the company's online content store, aiming to follow the success of Apple's App Store. Ovi Store by Nokia is available globally to an estimated 50 million Nokia device owners across more than 50 Nokia devices including the forthcoming flagship device, the Nokia N97. Users can visit store.ovi.com through their Nokia device browser to immediately begin downloading applications, games, videos, podcasts, productivity tools, web and location-based services and much more.

"Ovi Store is open for business and we've stocked the shelves with both local and global content for a broad range of Nokia devices," said Tero Ojanper?, Executive Vice President, Nokia Services. "Ovi Store makes shopping for content and applications easy and fun for feature phone and smartphone owners alike."

In available countries, users can update their devices with the Ovi Store mobile application by selecting the Ovi Store icon in the Download! folder on their device. The mobile client is available in English, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish and supports operator billing in Australia, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Russia, Singapore, Spain and the United Kingdom. Globally, credit card billing is available through the mobile application and the mobile website. Additional countries, languages, devices and features will be added throughout the year. AT&T plans to make Ovi Store available to its customers in the United States later this year.

Ovi Store is a media service that consolidates Nokia's existing content services into a one-stop-shop for free and paid content.