With 200 million users and 40,000 apps in its Ovi Store, the Finland-based mobile giant Nokia has reached another milestone of 5 million downloads per day, a figure eight times larger compared to last year. Fifteen percent of the augmentation is credited to its new Symbian devices – the Nokia N8, Nokia C6-01, Nokia C7 and Nokia E7. The Ovi Store is also dramatically growing with 1000 new applications a day from 158 developers in 41 countries. It has also recently partnered with Microsoft to distribute WP7 operating system via Nokia’s far-reaching network of customers.

“As consumers continue to download Ovi Store content with increasing frequency, developers have an immediate opportunity to reach consumers worldwide and capitalize on the approximately 150 million Symbian devices we plan to ship in the coming years,” said Tero Ojanpera, Nokia’s Executive Vice President of Services and Developer Experience.

“This momentum continues to demonstrate consumers’ appetite for Nokia’s global and locally relevant apps, and will help us plan the future apps store experience for improved and new Symbian devices, as well as Nokia smartphones based on the planned collaborative opportunities with Microsoft.”

Nokia is on a monetization heyday, tailoring integrated billing with 112 operators in 36 markets which is 25 times more operator billing integrations than its nearest competitor. This has also encouraged consumer transactions to fold 4 times which is a monetization opportunity for Symbian developers as well. It extends to Nokia Series 40 devices which will enable apps for the next billion mobile phone consumers. The revamped Ovi Store’s general availability beyond the new mobile devices also resulted in 35 percent augmentation of downloads for Series 40 devices in the last two months.

“In about a year, Nokia’s Ovi Store has gone from approximately 1 million downloads per day to up to 5 million downloads per day today, and the velocity appears to be increasing, fueled largely by Series 40 and new Symbian devices,” said Josh Martin, senior analyst, Strategy Analytics.

“At this new rate, that’s nearly 2 billion annualized downloads and with the company’s new direction, app developers can surely capitalize on this growth today and in the future with the estimated approximately 150 million Symbian devices that Nokia expects to deliver.”

A recent report by Gartner predicts the ranking of mobile operating systems by 2015, putting Android on top, tailed by Windows Phone mobile OS. Android will rake in 48.8 percent of market share, followed by Microsoft at 19.5 percent, then Apple at 17.2 percent, and finally, RIM at 11.1 percent. Nokia’s existing Symbian, which ranks number 1 last year with a 19.2 percent market share, is expected to be completely phased out by 2015, as Nokia partners with Microsoft and run Windows Phone on their upcoming mobile devices.

Nokia’s moves lately are akin to that of a female protagonist in a syndicated soap opera. Before Nokia locked a deal with Microsoft, it blew off its partnership with Intel and ditched Meego. But Intel refuses to cry in a corner. It decided to partner with Tencent and even set up a research center in China.

Shares of Nokia have dropped these past years, giving up market share to newcomers like Apple and Google. But it’s hoping to regain footing by partnering with Microsoft, even at the stake of abandoning Symbian, breaking up with Intel and ditching Meego. Who knows, a comeback might not be too far-fetched after all.