More details have emerged of the business model Nokia plans to adopt for its new Ovi online store that will go live in May and take on the might of Apple’s App Store. A Reuters report notes that Nokia will give 70 percent of all download revenue to developers, just like Apple, if consumers pay by credit card. But developers will earn less per transaction if consumers opt to pay through their operators, an option that will initially be available in nine countries. “Because of geographic coverage, credit cards will probably remain the main payment method,” Marco Argenti, vice president of media at the world’s largest handset manufacturer, told Reuters. “It’s going to be the default payment system across the world. [But] in nine countries… developers can activate operator payments.” Nokia’s own data has so far shown that, given a choice of paying via their operator or using a credit card, more than 80 percent of customers use operator billing.

At the unveiling of its application store plans at the GSMA Mobile World Congress last month, Nokia sought to differentiate its own offering from the likes of Apple and others by talking up how users can personalise their shopping in its new Ovi Store. “The store takes into consideration your location, your habits and your connected people’s habits, and your purchasing habits, showing the most relevant content to you,” Argenti added in the latest interview with Reuters. “The recommendation side is missing from the others.” Meanwhile, Nokia hopes to attract developers with a more liberal and faster approval process for reaching the store, stating it will decide on publishing submitted applications or content within a week and will also approve content from developers that goes head to head with its own software offering. The Nokia vs Apple application store battle is likely to be fierce; although Nokia says the Ovi store will reach some 50 million consumers when it opens, the Apple store has proved the market for software supermarkets in the mobile world, with more than 500 million applications downloaded in only half a year and over 25,000 applications already on offer.