Nokia – the company with the largest market share of mobile phones in the world has decided to introduce its first mobile phone using the Microsoft Operating System this year. This announcement was made yesterday (June 22, 2011) in Singapore by the company’s Chief Executive.
Stephen Elop, CEO, Nokia presented a speech at a technology trade show in Singapore in which he said that Nokia would however start shipping Windows based mobile phones “in bulk” quantity from next year.
According to Elope, “Our primary smartphone strategy is to focus on the Windows phone”. He further added “I have increased confidence that we will launch our first device based on the Windows platform later this year and we will ship our product in volume in 2012.”
Now a days, Nokia is facing steep competition from its competitors in many product categories. Apple’s iPhone, Android, Research inc Motion’s Blackberry are giving tough competition to Nokia’s products. In the lower end of the market segment, many new emerging companies are eating away the market share of the pie.
Nokia also acknowledged the fact that the company has been slow in meeting the challenges as posted by its competitors from time to time. It was also hinted in the meeting that Nokia is planning to drop prices of cellphones.
The company also unveiled N9 smartphone which was based on MeeGo platform. It was informed that N9 would go into sale later in the year. But, there was no specific date or price specified by the company. MeeGo was developed by Nokia in partnership with Intel Corp. Earlier this year, in February, Nokia also turned to Microsoft’s Windows Phone software, choosing it as its main operating system for smartphones.
Nokia also said that it was planning to launch up to 10 new Symbian based smartphone in the time frame of next 12 months.