THERE WAS no ringing endorsement for Nokia’s latest smartphone announcement in Barcelona this week. The company demonstrated its new 808 PureView, one of six smartphones it showcased at the annual mobile industry jamboree, to muted response.
The €450 808 PureView’s most notable feature is a 41-megapixel camera, which can take photos of “poster size” quality, according to Nokia, but what the analysts chose to focus on was news that the device runs on its Symbian platform, which will be phased out by 2016 in favour of Windows Phone software.
Nokia partnered last year with Microsoft in an attempt to become a viable third player alongside Apple and Google’s Android. When Stephen Elop, Nokia’s president and CEO, was asked during a QA session at the end of a keynote address on Wednesday if the Windows Phone can really develop a following, he was bullish, despite the fact that it only posted a million sales of its new phones in Q4, 2011.
“The delivery approach we’re taking at Nokia is to establish beachheads, country by country, and also to broaden the product. In the last few days, we announced a fourth device that now runs on Windows,” he said. Developers have increased the number of applications running on Windows from 6,000 a year ago to 650,000 today, he pointed out. When pressed, Elop later added that Nokia’s “number one focus is competing with Android”.
Nokia’s share price dropped six points following news of its Monday announcements, as investors despaired of its inability to deliver a low-cost device that runs on Microsoft’s software. Nonetheless, Elop stressed that the company’s focus will be to target emerging markets, those countries outside Europe and North America, or what he described as “the East”, with consumers who have yet to buy their first smartphone.
Elop would not comment at the conference on whether Nokia plans to bring out a tablet computer this year, something that analysts have predicted. Tablets have overtaken PCs in sales, being second only to mobile phones as Internet access devices. In an adjoining exhibit hall at the Barcelona conference, Microsoft demonstrated its Windows 8 platform, which is enabled for tablets.
Among the company’s strategies for future growth, it included a focus on “monetising” the mobile ecosystem, specifically in its plans to find effective operating billing systems. Nokia has billing systems with 150 operators in 40 countries to date, which service small, online payments.
“Purchases increase by a factor of five with easy-to-use payment systems,” he said. “There is a huge, young, urban consumer market without access to credit cards or traditional payment methods. We want to remove barriers to make micro payments and to take up subscription services.”
