ReadWriteWeb

Nokia announced today it would soon discontinue the use of the "Ovi" brand, the name it has used for its services offerings since 2007. The Ovi brand encompasses Ovi Maps, Ovi Mail, the Ovi Store, and more, all of which will now be rebranded as "Nokia" services. The decision, according to Nokia EVP and Chief Marketing Officer Jerri DeVard, will allow the company to centralize its services identity under one brand, not two.

However, DeVard assures us, all service roadmaps will continue as planned.

Today Nokia has released its Ovi Store download numbers and they're starting to look good. In fact, it appears that Nokia users are now downloading more applications than Blackberry users.

According a press release put out this morning, Nokia says it now reaches 140 million customers worldwide and is seeing more than 200,000 people per day signing up for Ovi, the marketplace which features applications, music, video and other downloads. Also, the Ovi Store, available in 190 countries, has now reached a milestone of 2.3 million downloads per day.

Nokia just announced a new mobile application development contest that comes with $10 million in "cash, devices and marketing prizes" up for grabs. The "Calling All Innovators" contest, presented by Nokia and AT&T, is designed to encourage developers in North America to build applications for the company's mobile customers.

Although the handset manufacturer is still tops worldwide in terms of market share, it has struggled to attract developers to build apps for its Symbian mobile operating system platform, which features an iTunes App Store competitor called the Ovi Store.

While the iPhone is clearly the media darling of mobile devices in the US, there's no denying that Nokia's handsets have saturated the global market. As part of that global strategy, the company just announced free walk and drive navigation for 74 countries in 46 languages. Today's release of the third iteration of Ovi Maps is similar to Google's maps for Android in that the service offers free turn-by-turn voice guidance. Nevertheless, there's one important catch - maps are cached offline for future use. ReadWriteWeb caught up with Nokia's VP of product and location, Christof Hellmis, for a look at how the company is saving device owners precious battery life.

As of 2012, CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo wants Nokia to have 300 million service subscribers. In an aggressive first step, he's planning on expanding the Ovi applications environment. But he needs to act quickly as in the past year the company's shares have fallen by 50%. In a recent interview with the Financial Times Kallasvuo admits he is trying to change Nokia's direction from being a handset provider to a service provider. With a formidable rival like Apple, it will certainly be an uphill battle.