Nokia’s Mobile Money & Music To Do The Rounds In India Soon

If there are three things in life without which many of us can’t live (besides for food and air) – it would be the three M’s Mobile, Money  and Music!

Nokia seems to have  a large market share when the first M is concerned i.e. Mobile but it seems its not too far behind with the other M’s too. Lets start with Money – Nokia Mobile Money was announced as a project sometime back and it made its entry into this space by acquiring a mobile payments technology company in Obopay. In India nokia has made strides into this arena by tying up with Yes Bank for running its pilot in Pune. Word is out that the pilot is doing well and that RBI which is the governing body for all payments related initiatives in India has given the project the much required go ahead.

How Nokia Mobile Money Will Work?

Given the number of Nokia outlets ( about 2 lakh of them) their reach would be leveraged and users will be required to fill a form that will make them an account holder with YES Bank. Then you can deposit the money at the outlet itself and its instantly credited in your phone. This can then be used to make payments at shops, pay electricity and water bills and for P2P transfers as well.

The other M that Nokia seems to be focussing on is Music. According to this report India is now among the top 5 markets for Nokia’s Ovi platform along with China, the UK and Vietnam. And Nokia is making sure India climbs up the ladder as it  announced that it will offer unlimited download of music at no cost for a year. Though the free music download is linked to the buying of any of the new models that Nokia has launched. The six specific handsets are Nokia 5530, 5130, 5235, X6 and X2 which will soon be available in India. This strategy makes sure that nokia not only gets users to sample the OVI platform but also buy the new Nokia phones. And its not only the sale of phones, After a year nokia is considering monetizing the music via advertisements as well.