Mobile Developers have been hailed for their creativity and urged to develop more localized applications for them to benefit from massive opportunities brought about by mobile phones.

Speaking to Smartphone.Biz-news.com, Head of Marketing Services, Middle East & Africa, Woon Peng, urged them to tap in their local environments to be successful.

Skype and Nokia today jointly announced the release of Skype for Symbian, a Skype client for Nokia smartphones based on the Symbian platform.

Skype for Symbian will allow Nokia smartphone users worldwide to use Skype on the move, over either a WiFi or mobile data connection (GPRS, EDGE, 3G).

Mozilla announced that Firefox is now available for Nokia’s Maemo platform. The browser is intended and optimized for use on the Nokia N900. It can also be run on the Nokia N810 and N800 Internet Tablets, but Mozilla don't recommend using its product on these devices because they are "significantly less powerful.”

On 21 January 2010, Nokia announced that it is to make turn-by-turn navigation free with its Ovi Maps offering. The research firm Canalys claims the move is a logical one for Nokia to take, especially in light of the recent launch of Google’s free navigation solution.

However, alanysts predict Nokia’s announcement will not be welcomed though by all its mobile operator partners.

Nokia makes walk and drive navigation free on its smartphones. Starting today, the company offers a new version of Ovi Maps that includes turn-by-turn navigation with voice guidance for 74 countries, in 46 languages, and traffic information for more than 10 countries, as well as detailed maps for more than 180 countries and 6000 3D landmarks for 200 cities around the world.

Nokia announced that it has today filed a complaint against Apple with the Federal District Court in Delaware, alleging that Apple's iPhone infringes Nokia patents for GSM, UMTS and wireless LAN (WLAN) standards.

Nokia says the ten patents in suit relate to technologies “fundamental” to making devices which are compatible with one or more of the GSM, UMTS (3G WCDMA) and wireless LAN standards.

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NOKIA WORLD 09. Nokia announced the launch of the new Nokia X6, the latest edition to the company’s Xseries touch-screen device portfolio.

This very slim (14mm) handset features stroke-sensitive, 3.2 inch 16:9 nHD widescreen, that enables to fit 20 shortcuts onto a home screen, 32GB internal memory, 5 megapixels with Carl-Zeiss optics and dual LED flash, built-in features to edit videos and show them on TV or online, GPS with Assisted GPS support, compass and Nokia Ovi Maps.

“Smart phones continue to shine as one of the brightest spots of the technology industry, with shipments growing despite the global recession,” says the recent Canalys’ report on the Q2 key smartphone market trends.

The report shows that Nokia maintains global lead, Apple’s success continues, as the iPhone takes 23% of the North American market and RIM continues to gain share, succeeding with its push into the consumer market. Touchscreens become the preferred interface, representing 40% of all shipments.

Nokia has finally launched the N900 – running on the new Maemo 5 latest company’s smartphone, which has evolved from Nokia's previous generation of internet tablets. “The open source, Linux-based Maemo software delivers a PC-like experience on a handset-sized device” says the company’s announcement.

Nokia N900 packs an ARM Cortex-A8 600 MHz processor, up to 1GB of application memory and 3D graphics accelerator with OpenGL ES 2.0 support. The result is, as the company promises, “PC-like multitasking, allowing many applications to run simultaneously.”

More than a third of Russian consumers are interested in a smartphone-based navigation device - while nearly 63 per cent are willing to pay more than euro 4 per month for a vehicle tracking service based on a GPS-enabled smartphone.
These are among the findings of research by Frost & Sullivan which also showed that global positioning system (GPS)-enabled smartphone technology is gaining ground over traditional portable navigation devices (PND) in the Russian navigation and telematics market.

Nokia has denied that it is developing a handset based on Google's Android operating system.
The response came after reports in the UK that the Finnish phone maker would announce an Android-based smartphone in September at the Nokia World Conference.

Truphone has announced that its VoIP and call-through services now support an additional 11 Nokia handsets.
The mobile VoIP operator first offered its VoIP-only services on Nokia devices but went on to include the iPhone and Android platforms.

Apple has launched its new iPhone 3GS with demand expected to be strong for the handset in the US and seven other initial launch countries.
However, with a smartphone market also offering new handsets from Palm, RIM and Nokia, to name but a few, the landscape has changed considerably since the original iPhone hit the market two years ago.

Nokia has officially opened the doors to the Ovi Store application site - but its answer to Apple's app store immediately ran into problems.
High traffic "spikes" - which would surely have been expected, right? - meant users experienced slow downloading and page upload times.

Worldwide smartphone shipments grew 5.1 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same period last year, according to the latest quarterly market overview by Canalys.
However, Pete Cunningham, senior analyst with Canalys, told smartphone.biz-news the North American consumer market saw shipments rise in Q1 2009 by 22.5 per cent year-on-year.

Smartphone sales grew 12.7 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 despite sharply falling sales of mobile phones generally - down 9.4 per cent year-on-year.
Leading the charge in high-end device sales were RIM's Blackberry handsets and Apple's iPhone, along with a number of other touchscreen phones, according to research firm Gartner.

INTERVIEW: Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer at analyst house Informa, talks about some of the latest trends affecting the mobile voice and data markets.
Speaking in advance of his address to the Insights'09 conference next month in Lisbon, he discusses the impact of the iPhone, the rush to open app stores and carriers' attitude to mobile VoIP.

Vodafone is joining the increasingly busy application store game by launching its own venture in a number of European markets later this year.
The mobile operator will take a 30 per cent share of all app revenue - mirroring Apple's App Store.

Nokia's first-quarter profit plunged 90 per cent as the Finnish handset maker showed its vulnerabilty to the current economic difficulties.
The world's leading mobile manufacturer posted a net profit of just EURO €122 million (USD $161m), compared with EURO €1.22 billion (USD $1.58bn) in the year-ago period.

Nokia's Q1 sales are expected to be down when accounced tomorrow - despite the success of its 5800 XpressMusic smartphone launched last year.
Analysts estimate 2.5 million 5800s may have been sold in the first three months of the year - helped by repeated sell-outs in the UK and roll-outs into new markets.

The iPhone sits outside the top 20 when it comes to the most popular phones for browsing and buying content on the mobile web worldwide.
Nokia's 3110c is the top handset, followed by the Samsung M800 and then Nokia's 6300, according to statistics released today by Bango. The iPhone appears as 24th on the list.

INTERVIEW: Sanjiv Parikh, vice president of marketing for FutureDial, talks to smartphone-biz.news about its mobile content management service and its potential to generate revenue for operators and retailers.
The company's Retail Management Solution (RMS) 4.0 allows mobile content to be directly loaded to handsets at store counters - an industry first.

Despite Symbian's (and Nokia's) strong position, "Samsung, RIM, HTC and Apple saw their volumes and share increase during 2008, thanks to their ability to offer compelling device experiences and touch interfaces.? Nokia is well aware that the competition is heating up, and that slick, consumer friendly touch screen devices will be to the next 5 years what the RAZR was to the last 5 years for normal consumers. I wold expect to see Nokia devices, running Symbian and sporting touch screens, to hit the US market in the coming 12-18 months.

Despite Symbian's (and Nokia's) strong position, "Samsung, RIM, HTC and Apple saw their volumes and share increase during 2008, thanks to their ability to offer compelling device experiences and touch interfaces.? Nokia is well aware that the competition is heating up, and that slick, consumer friendly touch screen devices will be to the next 5 years what the RAZR was to the last 5 years for normal consumers. I wold expect to see Nokia devices, running Symbian and sporting touch screens, to hit the US market in the coming 12-18 months.

Nokia still tops the smartphone market with sales of 60.9 million handsets last year for a total global market share of 43.7 per cent.
But the Finnish phone-maker's sales grew by just 0.8 per cent and its market share dropped from 49.4 per cent, with rivals Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple taking bigger slices of the smartphone pie.

This year's Mobile World Congress is now underway and already there has been a flurry of announcements and launches from some of the big names lining up in Barcelona.
Vodafone has unveiled a raft of new mobiles, including its first own-branded consumer GPS phone - the Vodafone 835.

The smartphone market is likely to see big changes in 2009 - not least in how revenue is raised for services and content.
Kris Kolodziej, CTO and vice president of business development with Spime, told smartphone-biz.news that advertising could begin to subsidise the cost of location-based services to consumers in 2009 and 2010.

The news that Symbian is going to go open-source was announced this last Tuesday. Nokia has taken the step to openly compete with Google and Microsoft for the right to placed on any OEMs smartphone device. This move is not all that surprising. Nokia is in fact in the OS business, and face major competition. Currently owning the lion's share of smartphone/ dumbphone market share, its a great step for them. I wuld bet many OEMs are thrilled that they now have choice amongst Google and Symbian for a free license; and add to that the fact that Symbian is very mature, and you have a great system to use if you are an OEM looking at comparing the platforms.

From Tom Krazit at CNET:
...the next great operating systems wars are about to be fought, as traditional computing companies collide with teams representing the mobile phone industry. Nokia's decision Tuesday to unify, then open-source, the Symbian operating system for smartphones clarifies how today's most-widely used handset operating system will evolve to match the open-source initiatives headed by Google and the LiMo Foundation and competition from companies like Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Apple...Unless RIM and Apple change their strategy to start licensing their operating systems, Nokia and Symbian will be competing for the affections of phone makers and carriers with Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Google's Android, and Linux-based mobile operating systems from the likes of the LiMo Foundation and others...

Full story here

The news that Symbian is going to go open-source was announced this last Tuesday. Nokia has taken the step to openly compete with Google and Microsoft for the right to placed on any OEMs smartphone device. This move is not all that surprising. Nokia is in fact in the OS business, and face major competition. Currently owning the lion's share of smartphone/ dumbphone market share, its a great step for them. I wuld bet many OEMs are thrilled that they now have choice amongst Google and Symbian for a free license; and add to that the fact that Symbian is very mature, and you have a great system to use if you are an OEM looking at comparing the platforms.

From Tom Krazit at CNET:
...the next great operating systems wars are about to be fought, as traditional computing companies collide with teams representing the mobile phone industry. Nokia's decision Tuesday to unify, then open-source, the Symbian operating system for smartphones clarifies how today's most-widely used handset operating system will evolve to match the open-source initiatives headed by Google and the LiMo Foundation and competition from companies like Microsoft, Research in Motion, and Apple...Unless RIM and Apple change their strategy to start licensing their operating systems, Nokia and Symbian will be competing for the affections of phone makers and carriers with Microsoft's Windows Mobile, Google's Android, and Linux-based mobile operating systems from the likes of the LiMo Foundation and others...

Full story here

Demand for GPS-enabled mobile phones will slow in 2009 but will avoid the fall in shipments expected to affect handsets generally.
At least that's what ABI Research is predicting. It forecasts that feature-rich smartphones will post year-to-year unit growth through the current economic downturn.

When I first saw the title of some blog posts on this phone (out of the UK of course; Nokia doesnt garner a lot of blog coverage here in the states), I was instantly thinking of a phone with a solar panel built in, green in color, and running out of juice every 10 minutes.

But, ha ha, its not really a 'green' phone, but rather a 'green' concept: phones shipping without chargers because you should be able to use the charger of your LAST phone. And, I like it. Cheers to Nokia for introducing a dead simple concept to the marketplace, and really, what is their profit margin on those chargers? Probably not much, and certainly outweighed by being able to make some nice PR spin out of the launch of the phone. And, Nokia is asking consumers what they think (survey here).

From All About Symbian (www.allaboutsymbian.com):
Following in the footsteps of the N79 Active comes another N79 variant, the N79 Eco, which is available for pre-order through Nokia's UK online shop and ships without a charger. Customers are expected to retain the charger from their previous Nokia device. The concept is part of a trial to save energy and reduce waste and is part of Nokia's power of we: strategy. Read on for stats and the full scoop.

From Nokia:
We understand you don't always need another charger. So, when you buy this Nokia N79 online, it comes without one. All we're asking is that you keep hold of your old Nokia charger, and use it again. It's part of a trial to save energy and reduce waste, so it comes in a smaller box too, and for each one we sell we'll donate £4 to WWF, the global conservation organisation.

Together we can help the environment, that?s the power of "WE:"

Charger not included. Proud to reuse.

Tell us what you think of our no-charger trial, and we'll give you a discount code for an online accessory purchase. Take the survey.

Nokia will see its share of the global smartphone market halved from 40 to 20 per cent by 2013, according to Generator Research.
And who is going to be gobbling up Nokia's lost business? Why Apple, of course.

Growth in the global smartphone market dipped to 11.5 per cent in the third quarter year-on-year, the slowest rate of growth since it started tracking smartphone sales, according to research firm Gartner.
Some 36.5 million smartphones were sold globally in the July-September quarter.

Filed under: Handsets, Nokia

Come on, you didn't think Nokia's only response to the G1, iPhone, and Storm would be the 5800 XpressMusic, did you? Word on the ground at this week's Nokia World conference is that Espoo is planning a major announcement tomorrow -- and hey, is that a countdown timer to the keynote that just went live on Nokia's site? Interesting. Our pal and yours Robert Scoble says that Nokia execs are running around bragging that "the Internet" is totally in the dark on this one, and that only a small number of people within the company have seen the new device. That's certainly got our ears perked up -- we're guessing this is something a little more major than that hinted-at touch Communicator. We'll let you know right away if you want to stay up with us -- the event is scheduled for 3:15AM EST.

Read - Scoble's take
Read - Nokia countdown clock

Nokia teases major new product launching tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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So who exactly was Nokia's Kai Öistämö referring to as a "dictator" when he addressed the recent Symbian Smartphone Show in London?
No names were named by the executive vice president of devices but his speech made it clear the Finnish giant isn't resting on its laurels.

Symbian’s CEO Nigel Clifford spelt out his vision for the organisation’s future under Nokia as one which would sweep away previous obstacles and attract innovative developers.
Giving the opening keynote speech at the Smartphone Show in London, Clifford admitted that up until now developers may have been put off working with Symbian because of licensing agreements and conditions.

HTC’s Touch HD has joined the Blackberry Bold and Nokia 5800 on the list of 3G smartphones that have no US release date.
HTC has announced through its Twitter feed that says that although it "looked into it," it has decided that by the time the HD could be converted and imported into the US, the device would be "old news".

Nokia has finally unveiled its touchscreen 5800 XpressMusic.
Aimed at a mainstream market, the Finnish phone giant is hoping to attract users put off by the price of Apple’s iPhone.
To coincide with the announcement of its the mid-range music-focussed phone Nokia launched its’ free music package Comes with Music.

An announcement is expected from Nokia today about the launch of a touch-screen device.
Dubbed the “Tube”, the handset could be unveiled at a media and analyst event in London.
It would be Nokia’s first touch-screen since Apple launched the iPhone last year.

Nokia is to start a mobile TV channel in the UK specifically for its new N96 smartphone.
Users of the new handset, which was launched earlier this month, will be able to access a service called Capsule N96 from the beginning of October.

Smartphones accounted for 25.8 per cent of worldwide mobile ad traffic in August, up 3.4 per cent since May 2008, according to AdMob’s August 2008 Mobile Metrics Report.
Nokia dominates globally, with a 62.4 per cent slice of the traffic in August and more than 50 per cent in every region except North America.

A further nine companies have thrown their weight behind the planned Symbian Foundation.
As well as comprising some well known Symbian names, the newcomers represent device manufacturers (in the form of Sharp and KTF) and a strong showing of software engineering and middleware companies.

Samsung has accepted Nokia's offer to buy out its stake in software firm Symbian, and Nokia now has acceptances from all Symbian shareholders to sell their shares.
Nokia said in June it would buy out other shareholders of UK-based smartphone software maker Symbian and make its software royalty-free to other phone makers in response to new rivals such as Google.

Smartphone sales in the EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa) market reached 12.57 million units in the second quarter of 2008, representing a 28.2 per cent on-year growth, according to market research firm Canalys.
While the results signal the second biggest quarter ever in volume terms for “converged” devices, the growth was the lowest level recorded in the past 18 months.

Sales of smartphones in China grew 32 per cent on year to 15 million units in the first half of 2008, according to data released from China-based CCID Consulting.

The GPS maker Garmin has delayed plans to launch its Nuvifone smartphone in the fourth quarter of 2008 until the first half of 2009.
Obstacles in dealing with the various individual needs of each cell phone carrier were cited as the reason for the delay.

Research shows that American teenagers have at their disposal an estimated US$200 billion annually in discretionary spending.
The marketing agency Fuse recently interviewed execs from companies like Sony, MTV Networks, Yahoo and Nokia to get their take on what the future of technology will look like for the teen market.

Some impressive mobile phone product launches between now and the year-end will help the world’s mobile handset markets finish 2008 with strong sales, according to ABI Research.
Spurred on by the launch of Apple’s second-generation iPhone, rival handset vendors such as RIM, Nokia and Samsung are also expected to debut new models in the second half of 2008.

The Nokia N95-4 has been sold in mainstream retail stores for about a month. And, for a little longer than that, Nokia has given us a copy to review.

Is Nokia’s fourth go-around with the N95 one that can stand up to iPhone 3G? Read more to find out.

Buy a Nokia N95-4 from Amazon.com
Buy a Nokia N95-3 from Amazon.com
Phone Encyclopedia: Nokia N95-4

First, the iPhone comparison. There’s no real secret that Nokia retooled the old N95-3 to answer iPhone. About the only major differences between the two devices are an all-black color, and 8 GB of memory. The N95-4 also abandons its microSD card slot, similar to Apple’s iPhone. Nokia says that this was done to make room for (and to use the connectors) for the 8 GB memory.

As such, when it comes to folks that say that the N95-4 is not something Nokia aimed at iPhone… the changes were made specifically to answer Apple’s smartphone.

Out first impression, is that this change is more than well-implemented. Nokia has given the N95-3 the same software improvements that the N95-4 has in it. And, as such, buyers in North America (NAM) have a choice; they can get the N95-3 for less money (which has a microSD card slot), or pay a bit more and get the N95-4 with 8 GB preinstalled.

In terms of usage, the 8 GB memory is considered external storage, it functions just as if you had an 8 GB microSDHC card installed. We saw no real-world difference between it, and a high-quality microSDHC card in terms of speed.

General Usage

The N95-4 prides itself in being a normal phone, with every feature you can think of surrounding it. And, as a “normal” phone, it’s an excellent device. Strong signal, excellent audio quality, and it plays well with both 2G and 3G networks.

About the only basic phone drawback we could find on the N95-4, was that you cannot recharge the device using its mini-USB port. After numerous complaints about this on the first three N95 revisions, one would hope that the fourt N95 would have addressed this. If Motorola and LG can charge over USB, why not Nokia?

One thing that did wow quite a bit was the camera. Hands-down, the N95-4 has the best camera we’ve ever used inside a phone. Even with a CMOS image sensor, it blows away the CCD camera phones (which gained niche popularity) in the first half of the decade.

AppStore vs Download! & N-Gage

Both iPhone and N95-4 are revved up with online stores for buying apps. Both launched without online application stores, but now are offering them. However, this is probably one of the largest areas where Nokia takes a step forward… and then a huge step back.

With the N95-4, you can download software from anywhere. If it’s S60 3rd Edition, it just works. But, the Download! application only lists about 1% of the available S60 software. Why? Because Download! only allows for commercial software to be listed.

That means all the awesome, amazing, well-polished S60 free applications and software… are nowhere to be found. Same applies to Nokia’s N-Gage service.

The AppStore on iPhone, on the other had, allows for unlimited free software (developers simply pay a one-time $99 fee). However, there’s a problem… iPhone doesn’t allow for unsigned code in most cases. Developers need to have the code signed by Apple before it executes.

Apple may have a workaround to allow for unsigned code. However, even if they don’t, the general user won’t care. The general user will find hundreds of times more applications (and we’re not overstating that) on iPhone’s AppStore, from day one.

In case we haven’t hammered it home yet, Nokia Download! doesn’t help with the one main problem with S60: Easy access to all the free software out there still doesn’t exist.

Issues

The N95-4 comes pre-loaded with Nokia Maps 2.0. We downloaded the latest update, and it worked without problem. Well, mostly…

The main issues we encountered were with North American limitations. While Nokia Maps touts live traffic support, such service is not available in the United States. The included 180-day license however, means you don’t have to pay to find out that limitation.

Documentation came up a bit short too. It was tedious to find out how to enable features like Night Mode. And, the default settings are off. For one, Nokia Maps dares to be different from other GPS software, and doesn’t leave the screen on by default. While driving, this is not a pleasant thing to find out.

Stereo Bluetooth (A2DP) also, unfortunately had issues with disconnecting and dropout. We tested the N95-4 with the Motorola S9, one of the most popular Stereo Bluetooth headsets. Even inside a pant pocket, we experienced disconnections between the device while playing music. The dropouts were multi-second silences in playback.

But, worst of all was in one area where Nokia touts its openness. The N95-4 simply did not want to work as a wireless modem. Our attempts with Bluetooth DUN modem connections… simply were not what was expected. We expected the N95-4 to champion tethering. What we got were a series of failed connections on both Mac and PC. When it worked… it was remarkably slow, giving us about half the speed we experienced on the device’s internal connection.

Adding JoikuSpot (a Wi-Fi base station app) didn’t help much either. Speeds were extremely sluggish, indicating a bug in the N95-4’s internal IP relaying system. We might have understood that on, say, a CDMA Series 40 phone. We don’t understand that on a flagship S60 phone with the latest firmware update installed.

Speaking of Wi-Fi, the N95-4 didn’t help with that. It simply has the worst Wi-Fi we’ve ever seen short of a Linux system. It works, but it would be faster to use 3G than to wait for the constant setups and nagging connection screens.

Conclusions

Not much was said here that was good about the N95-4. That’s because we’ve come to take a lot of it for granted from Nokia. And, who wouldn’t expect that after years of successful phones. S60 has become the most dominant smartphone platform in the world.

Perhaps we’re nit picking then to point out the flaws on the device. We almost agreed… but then we remembered the retail price of N95-4. Right now, Best Buy (the brick and mortar) wants $759.99 for the phone. That’s three times the contracted price of an iPhone 3G. Even without contract, the multi-touch screen iPhone 3G is $160 cheaper.

What do we get for that $160? We get a better camera, buggy Stereo Bluetooth, buggy modem, and the ability to run unsigned applications. Is that worth $160? Since most people are under contract, a better question would be to ask is that worth an extra $560? We can’t say yes no matter how much money we have.

Now, shortly before going to press… Nokia changed their tune a bit. While Best Buy is still asking $760 for the N95-4, Amazon has cut the price down to just over $600. Still, for a non-touch screen… the unlocked status of this phone is still lost on us. It doesn’t feature UMTS 2100, and as such… we really wouldn’t want to use it abroad anyways. Nokia has yet to craft a truly world phone capable of international and domestic 3G frequencies.

Does all of this make the N95-3 a better phone? Yes, it does. It’s over $150 cheaper, that’s more than three times the price of an 8 GB microSDHC card.

Bottom line; if you want Nokia’s flagship phone, don’t go with the N95-4, go with the N95-3 instead.

Pros: Excellent camera, battery life, signal, balanced S60 phone.
Cons: Buggy Bluetooth, buggy tethering, bad app store, overcomplicated Wi-Fi, grossly, grossly, grossly overpriced.
Final Score: 2/5

Buy a Nokia N95-4 from Amazon.com
Buy a Nokia N95-3 from Amazon.com
Phone Encyclopedia: Nokia N95-4

South Korean regulations requiring handset applications to be based on a homegrown technology are largely why the country’s mobile phone market is dominated by Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics.
As a result of the WIPI ruling – the acronym stands for wireless internet platform for interoperability - foreign companies have found it too expensive to produce handsets tailored for South Korean consumers.
Nokia is virtually absent in the country and Motorola is a minor competitor with less than 5 per cent of the market. Apple has kept its iPhone out of the market because of the WIPI rule.
Yet international handset makers are keen to enter South Korea, one of the world’s most technologically advanced and expensive telecoms markets.
Now President Lee Myung-bak’s newly elected government has expressed a willingness to soften the WIPI rule, potentially opening the door to foreign handset makers.

Nokia may still be the world’s leading mobile phone supplier but it’s been toppled from its pedestal when it comes to phone cases.
Krusell, the Swedish manufacturer of carrying cases for portable electronics, has released its “Top 10” - list for June 2008.
The list is based upon the number of pieces of model specific mobile and smartphone cases that have been ordered from the company during June 2008.
Its chart is unique, according to Krusell, due to the fact that it reflects the sales of phones on six continents and in more than 50 countries around the globe.

Nokia’s intention to compete in the Smartphone market by launching an array of devices will lead to a substantial and prolonged “upside” for the mobile giant.
Gus Papageorgiou, an analyst at Scotia Bank, said he believes Nokia is undervalued after hearing its CEO outline future growth plans.
Among the reasons for his optimism is the company’s aggressive plan to compete in the high-end Smartphone market, so far largely dominated by the rivalry between Research in Motion’s Blackberry and Apple’s iPhone.
Nokia is launching a range of new Smartphones and repositioning its image away from the hardware/”mobile phone” tag, by integrating services with its handsets to deliver web-enabled customer solutions.