Nokia’s Ovi Store has soft launched in Australia. The Ovi Store is now accessible on the Australian operator Vodafone. Ovi Store is Nokia’s content/app store for applications, games, wallpapers, themes, ringtones etc.

The Australian launch will soon be followed by other carriers in the next few hours and days. According to a post from Nokia’s Conversations blog, (That was pulled later) Nokia confirmed the rollout and said that it was moving the Ovi Store to “production servers,” and that users can “expect a broader announcement and consumer availability soon.”

Nokia’s Ovi Store will start out with a large catalog of items compared to their direct competitors, like the iTunes App Store and the Android Market. They’ll start out with about a stunning 20,000 apps. The Ovi Store is scheduled to open in late spring, just in time for the release of the Nokia N97 in July.

The store items are said to include games, general apps and even short videos. GPS will be used to filter content by city and locality. This marks a sharp contrast to the first app stores. The iTunes App Store started with only 500 apps and the Android Market started with about 50 apps. App stores are here to stay.