Will Nokia's Arabic push pay off?

Mobile phone launches come and go, but with Nokia trying to elbow itself into the lucrative smartphone market with its flagship N97 device, every little bit of incentive helps.

At the press conference for the N97 here in Dubai, the Finnish handset giant's announced the "bil3arabi" competition to the Arabic mobile world. Nokia said it would award $100,000 to a software developer who creates the best Arabic-language mobile application for its Ovi Store. Second place gets $25,000 while a slew of also-rans will get special recognition by Nokia.

Even though the announcement is another positive sign for the regional tech community and will certainly help drive Nokia's growth in the region, it is tough to say whether or not it will sway enough movement among local developers to stop coding mobile apps for Apple or Research In Motion. More thoughts after the jump.

Both Apple and RIM have the benefit of already capturing the hearts and wallets of tech savvy smartphone users around the world. Both handset makers have done a very good job of creating devices that do exactly what they are advertised to do. (Full disclosure - I'm an iPhone user and my first job out of high school was working for RIM).

Now Nokia is trying to turn around its falling revenue and market share numbers with an application store of their own. Even though the Ovi Store got off to a rocky start when it was soft-launched last week, its offerings certainly seem pale in comparison to its smartphone rivals. With roughly two thousand applications available online with only a "few" said to be accessible for the Arabic market. Compare that to Apple, which has over a tenfold lead on Nokia with RIM close behind.

Nokia's strategy of selling the N97 for the hefty non-subsidized Dh3,050 (US$830) may make some customers think twice about buying the new device, especially with an onslaught of new devices from Apple, RIM, Palm and handsets with Google's Android operating system on the horizon. Then there's the lack of consumer confidence  in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression.

If there is a silver lining to Nokia's ambitions, it is its significant dominance in the Middle East and Africa, owning 62 per cent of the market, according to Neil Mawston from the UK-based mobile consultancy Strategy Analytics. (A Nokia executive declined to tell me how much market share they specifically have in the UAE, but he did admit with a smile they were very well ahead of the competition).

Having such a large user base, even if they don't own the latest and greatest devices, is not something to take lightly. Nokia says more than 50 million of its phones can access its Ovi Store and a healthy assumption could conclude that a significant amount reside within the region. That's a number that dwarfs the iPhone's worldwide user base by a significant margin.

But even with strong brand loyalty and the first language-targeting developer contest (that I'm aware of) behind them, Nokia still doesn't quite have the same "cool factor" many people get when they first laid their eyes on the iPhone or played around with the BlackBerry's keyboard. What we really need to see is some real innovation from Finland - something entirely new that doesn't mimic what any other handset maker has done. Throwing $100,000 at the local development community just won't cut it.