Nokia plans 3 smartphones

Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia is planning to launch three smart phones, including its Pureview model with 41 megapixel sensor camera, in India, this year. The company’s Sriperumbudur facility, near Chennai, which saw an investment of about $500 million so far, would also start manufacturing and marketing its two new models of feature phone series Asha in 2012, according to a senior executive from the company.

Nokia 808 Pureview, which has a 41 megapixel sensor which enhances imaging quality of the camera, is expected to start shipping in India in the middle of this month. The company would launch Lumia 900 and Lumia 610, the Lumia subbrand of smart phones it develops in collaboration with Microsoft, in the country in the 3rd quarter of 2012, said Vipul Mehrotra, director — smart devices, Nokia India.

The company is also planning to launch two touch phone models in its feature phones with internet connectivity, Asha series, in India, this year. The models, Asha 305 and Asha 311, would be manufactured in the Chennai facility, Prakash Katama, director of Chennai’s factory operations.

He added that the Chennai facility delivers products to over 70 countries. The facility, started in 2006, has so far manufactured over 600 million phones till November, 2011 and presently manufactures 23 different products.

The company, when it set up a telecom Special Economic Zone in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai, has committed an investment of $500 million including Nokia’s $300 million investment. The $500 million investment has already been completed, said Katama.

D Shivakumar, senior vice president, IMEA, Nokia said here, “Globally, Lumia sub-brand is seeing good traction and in the first quarter of 2012, around 2 million units of Nokia Lumia were sold.”

The Microsoft Windows operating system in India has a good demand and it is growing fast, which would help the sales of Nokia Lumia.” The company generally adds around 30-40 products to its kitty every year, he added. He added that the online payment option for Nokia store in the handsets, in collaboration with mobile service operators, has increased purchases through the store almost five times. Nokia has signed an agreement with Airtel and Vodafone to offer download services to its customers from Nokia store by billing the product or content through the periodical bills of the operators.

“This has been widely accepted by the consumers and we see almost 66 per cent of the consumers prefer operator billing for their purchase from Nokia store. We are in discussions with other operators to extend the service to more customers,” said Shivakumar. The company is also planning to offer two new services, Nokia City Lens in which it would provide information and services based on the location of the device and Nokia Music with Mix Radio, which offer free mobile music-streaming and offline listening app, this year. The Mix Radio service would be launched by September, this year, said Mehrotra.