Finland’s Nokia, struggling to remain the world’s top mobile phone maker amid fierce competition, yesterday launched its first smartphones using the Windows operating system, which it hopes will secure profitability.
Nokia launched the Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 smartphones, to be rolled out starting next month on selected markets.
DO-OR-DIE
The success of the new phones is seen as do-or-die for Nokia, with its market share plunging as smartphone users flock to the hugely popular iPhone by Apple, RIM’s Blackberry and handsets running Google’s Android platform.
Chief executive Stephen Elop in February announced a radical company restructuring and the phasing out of Symbian as Nokia’s smartphone software in favor of a partnership with Microsoft.
“Eight months ago, we shared our new strategy and today we are demonstrating clear progress of this strategy in action. We’re driving innovation throughout our entire portfolio, from new smartphone experiences to ever smarter mobile phones,” Elop said at an event in London.
“We are very proud of Lumia and everything it represents. Lumia means light, this is a new dawn for Nokia,” he added.
Yet the market did not seem impressed with the launches, with Nokia’s share up just 1.33 percent in early afternoon trading on a flat Helsinki Stock Exchange.
Analyst Michael Schroeder of FIM Bank said the launch was “not enough” to help Nokia immediately begin regaining market share.
“No, they need a lot more to stop the slide,” he said. “They need broader distribution, they need global distribution before they can start gaining market share.”
The Lumia 800 features Internet Explorer 9, free voice-guided navigation services and free music and image storage.
It will go on sale in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain next month, and in Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, Russia and Singapore by the end of the year. A simpler version, the Lumia 710, will go on sale by the end of the year in most of those markets.
MARKET SHARE
Schroeder estimated Nokia’s market share for smartphones at 15 percent in the third quarter, down from 18 percent in the previous quarter, and put its overall market share for mobile devices at about 25 percent, down from a peak of about 40 percent in early 2008.
Nokia last week posted a third quarter loss of 68 million euros (US$94.7 million), far smaller than analysts expected.
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