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Nokia’s new phones eye emerging markets
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Nokia is targeting emerging markets with three low-cost smartphones that use Google’s Android operating system rather than the Windows Phone software from Microsoft, which is about to take over Nokia’s handset business.
Nokia will ditch many of the Google services that come with Android and use instead the Microsoft services such as Bing search, Skype communications and OneDrive file storage. Its home screen sports larger, resizable tiles resembling those on Windows phone.
“More and more people are buying smartphones for less than 100 euros,” Stephen Elop, Nokia executive vice president, said yesterday as he presented the new phones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. “That sub-100 range is a massive opportunity for us. According to analysts, it will grow four times as fast as the rest of the smartphone market.”
Once the No. 1 maker of cellphones, Nokia has been struggling to keep up with the iPhone and devices running Android. And even as competition intensifies for high-end smartphones, Nokia has been hit by cheaper phones made by Chinese and other Asian companies.
The Nokia X is on sale immediately for 89 euros (US$122). The Nokia X+ will cost 99 euros and the Nokia XL will cost 109 euros, with both going on sale in early March.
The Nokia X and X+ both have 4-inch screens, measured diagonally, and a 3-megapixel rear camera. The X+ also offers SD card for storage. The XL has a 5-inch screen and two cameras, the rear one at 5 megapixels. Still, 8 megapixels or greater is typical for high-end phones.
“This may be a few years too late, but it is a much needed move by Nokia to recapture share of the smartphone market by becoming part of the Android ecosystem,” said David McQueen, principal analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media, a London-based research firm.
Elop said all three phones will be “available broadly around the world, starting in growth markets.” The aim is to make the Nokia X a bridge to high-end Windows smartphones under the Lumia brand.
They won’t be available in the US, Canada, South Korea and Japan in part to avoid competing with Lumia phones, which cost hundreds of dollars in the US without subsidies from phone carriers.
Elop said that despite using Android, Nokia remains committed to Windows and Microsoft, which is buying Nokia’s phone business and patent rights in a 5.4-billion-euro deal expected to be completed in March.
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