Nokia hopes to attract price-sensitive customers

Dubai: Nokia is building a diverse portfolio of Lumia phones based on Windows platform to attract different price sensitive customers in a bid to regain its lost market share in the smartphone segment, Tom Farrell, vice-president of Nokia Middle East, told Gulf News. He said Middle East customers are very sophisticated and love innovation and the latest gadgets. "Our strategy is working. When we formed an alliance last year with Microsoft our intention was to regain lost share. After one year, it is still working. We are the number one Windows phone in volume in the world. Our momentum is accelerating." With regard to their Windows strategy, he said: "We plan to introduce and bring to markets new and more affordable products with more modern user experiences with Windows Phone in 2012. We will launch Lumia series when Arabic support is ready." According to Annette Zimmermann, principal analyst, consumer markets and technology at Gartner, Arabic content is ready and Nokia is expected to sell the Lumia series soon. Nokia left its Symbian OS behind last year and moved to Windows to power its future devices to fight its way back into the smartphone market. After almost five years, the Finnish giant has come back with a bang. Having technology that makes it possible to take high-resolution 41 megapixel pictures on a smartphone will take it a step further. It is part of a transition, Zimmermann said, and added Symbain OS will continue for several years. PureView technology that runs on Symbian OS will soon be making its way into Lumia. "Nokia wants to show that they are an innovative company. They took five years to develop this on Symbian platform. This technology is likely to move to a Microsoft platform. There a lot of things this camera can do. It is highly priced. It is more important to look at it as a technology point. Nokia has done a lot of research on trends," she added. Speaking of the rumours of a Nokia tablet, she said: "We are looking at tablets, but we don't want to be the 202 manufacturer. We want to differentiate and stand out from the crowd." From gulfnews