Nokia opens new 'Windows' for sales

The fresh launches are expected to raise company’s steadily declining share in smartphone market.

Global handset maker Nokia, along with Microsoft, on Monday announced the launch of its first smartphone based on the Windows operating system in the Indian market. The move is expected to boost Nokia’s presence in the smartphone market, which has seen the company lose market share steadily.

The phones — Lumia 800 and Lumia 710 — have been priced at about $580 and $380 globally, respectively, and would be available in the retail market from mid-December. Nokia would do away with the Symbian platform in the coming years, and replace it with the Windows operating system in all its smartphones, said Nokia India Managing Director, D Shivakumar. “The success of any phone in India is decided within three-four weeks of its launch, and we are confident that this is a winner, since we have already trained about 12,500 distributors, retailers and priority dealers who can sell Nokia Windows phone to smartphone buyers,” Shivakumar said.

The smartphone market, expected to account for 20 per cent of the total handset market in value terms, has become a hotbed for handset vendors. Nokia unveiled its smartphone nearly a week ahead of Apple, which is rumoured to launch the iPhone 4S in India on November 24.

The Finnish handset company expects the smartphone market in India to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 50 per cent in 2010-15, owing to 3G services and increased data usage. Globally, Nokia fell to No. 3 slot in the smartphone market, behind Samsung and Apple, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics. The company, however, continues to account for almost 30 per cent of market share in India.

For Microsoft, the smartphone platform presents a huge opportunity to tap the consumer market. With a large presence in the government and education sectors in India, Microsoft is confident that the Windows phone would become the second-most popular smartphone operating system by 2015. While rivals Samsung and HTC already have smartphones on the Windows platform, Bhaskar Pramanik, chairman, Microsoft India, said, “What matters is the hardware and software integration. We have worked closely with Nokia to offer a unique user experience to users of the Lumia range of devices.” Microsoft Windows operating system is expected to grow at 123 per cent until 2015 in the global market. Currently, in India, the operating system has less than one per cent market share, according to StatCounter data.

“It is more important for Nokia to provide consumers a strong experience in targeted markets and listen to consumer feedback to improve and further differentiate future Windows smartphone releases, than it is to quickly ramp volume of its initial Windows launch,” say analysts at Canaccord.

The new Lumia range has the internet explorer 9 browser and in-built social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter embedded into the operating system. The range also boasts of applications such as Nokia Maps and Drive, which would have personal navigation devices in 50 languages, including Hindi. The company would offer maps of 100 countries and 750 cities across India free on all Nokia Lumia devices. Nokia Music and the MixRadio, a free global mobile music streaming application, would also be available. These services would be made available in India in the first half of 2012.

Nokia would also provide 750 local applications by nearly 1,000 Indian developers on the Lumia device. The device has already been launched in Europe.