Its longterm future as a separate entity to Windows Phone Marketplace might be up in the air, but Nokia is continuing to broaden Ovi Store's business while Symbian remains the firm's focus.

Its latest invention, following on from the news that the marketplace's daily downloads have hit 5 million, is to offer carriers their own self-branded, and even self-populated, Ovi Store, starting out with Orange France and Deutsche Telekom.

All out for Ovi

Built internally by Nokia, the two parties will be able to run their own Ovi Store channels, enabling them to differentiate their services  by offering consumers bespoke apps housed in a unique, tailored marketplace.

As well as implementing carrier billing into the respective "shelves", Nokia will provide tools for carriers to develop their own apps that link up with social and location based APIs.

"In addition to the store-in-store advantages, operators can leverage Nokia's local support to create relevant offerings and easily publish apps through the evergrowing Ovi Store," said senior VP of developer and marketplace for Nokia, Marco Argenti.

"We're very happy to launch and pioneer these new Ovi Store experiences with Deutsche Telekom and Orange France."

Unique opportunity

It's this assertion that the new channels will offer carriers a sense of distinction that Nokia is naturally most keen to push.

Commentators have previously spoken out and suggested the public now regard carriers as little more than 'dumb pipes'.

Offering them the ability to bring their own flavour to the Ovi Store – which remains one of the largest app marketplaces out there – is likely to go down well.

"Nokia's new Ovi Store concept creates a unique opportunity for Orange to promote and market specific apps and content that is most relevant to our customer base all while maintaining a familiar consumer experience," concluded director of multimedia mobile offers at Orange France, Catherine Le Drogo.