Nokia and T-Mobile are pricing the U.S. version of the former's Lumia 710 at $49, a strategy seemingly designed to push hard against midmarket Android devices.
Nokia's big
plan for its comeback in the U.S. smartphone market: unleash the flood of
Windows Phones.
Starting Jan.
11, Nokia and T-Mobile will offer the Lumia 710 to U.S. customers for $49 with
a two-year contract. The midmarket device will feature a 1.4GHz processor,
5-megapixel camera, and a choice of either black or white exterior. Preloaded
applications will include Nokia Drive, which offers turn-by-turn navigation and
voice-activated control.
"The
intended audience is the first-time smartphone buyers," Chris Weber,
president of Nokia's U.S. division, told eWEEK
Dec. 13. "That is by far the biggest opportunity for us in the U.S."
Nokia is also angling to make the Lumia 710 a go-to device for those first-time
buyers normally intimidated by smartphone technology.
Microsoft will
also contribute "learning and resources" to Nokia's and T-Mobile's
promotional efforts, according to Weber. Unlike rivals such as the iPhone and
Google Android, which present the user with grid-like screens of individual applications,
Microsoft's Windows Phone offers a set of subject-specific tiles ("People,"
"Games" and more) that group applications and Web content.
Internationally,
Nokia is also pushing a higher-end Lumia 800 with a 1.4GHz processor, hardware
acceleration and graphics processor, an 8-megapixel camera that uses Carl Zeiss
optics, 16GB of internal user memory, and 25GB of free SkyDrive storage for
music and images. It features a 3.7-inch active-matrix organic LED (AMOLED)
ClearBlack curved display integrated into a body rendered from a single piece
of polycarbonate.
But Weber was
reluctant to share when the Lumia 800 would join its midrange sibling on the
U.S. market. "We haven't announced any additional devices," he said. "We'll
shortly communicate some additional announcements for the marketplace."
By pricing the
Lumia 710 at $49, Nokia is clearly aiming at a midmarket currently dominated by
a broad range of Google Android devices. The Finnish phone-maker has a
negligible presence in the U.S. market, something the company desperately wants
to change. Earlier this year, Nokia CEO Stephen Elop made the controversial
decision to abandon his company's Symbian and MeeGo operating systems in favor
of Windows Phone, something he insisted would allow Nokia to compete more
heartily against both iOS and Android.
For Nokia,
then, Windows Phone is something of the ultimate bet: Success could result in a
broad-based revival of the company's fortunes. But if its newest device line
fails, the company lacks a fallback operating system. Considering Windows Phone's
small market share, it's also a somewhat risky wager. Some analysts have
questioned Nokia's ability to take a significant chunk of the higher market
away from players like Apple's iPhone and Motorola's Droid franchise.
"With no
breakthrough innovation, we believe Nokia's new phones are unlikely to get
traction in a highly concentrated high end," James Faucette, an analyst at
Pacific Crest Securities, wrote in a research note quoted by The New York TimesNov. 22. With that in mind, he set Nokia Windows
Phone sales for the quarter to 500,000 units, down from his previous projection
of 2 million.
Follow Nicholas Kolakowski on Twitter
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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