It seems that Nokia Corporation (NOK) is not ready to give up its feature phone dominance as the company unveiled two new handsets targeting the low-end market. Nokia still remains the second-largest cell phone manufacturer in the world.
The Finnish giant has launched Nokia 207 and Nokia 208 along with a dual SIM version of the latter. The handsets are designed to support 3G Internet speeds. All the phones are similar in appearance and run on Nokia’s Series 40 operating system. The only difference in the handsets is the 1.3 megapixel rear camera which only Nokia 208 has.
The feature phones sport a 2.4 inch display screen, 64 MB of ram and 256 MB of internal storage, which is expandable up to 32 GB through a micro SD slot. The phones have an excellent battery backup of around 33 days and are available in five colours. The phone is expected to be retailed at around $68 and will start shipping in the third quarter of 2013.
Nokia claims that the latest handsets are its most affordable 3G devices and possess smartphone features like social media and Nokia Xpress browser for faster streaming and several other applications. Nokia’s new range is targeting the emerging markets, where customers still prefer low budget phones.
As per IDC, at the end of first-quarter 2013, 216.2 million smartphones were shipped as opposed to only 202.4 million feature phones. Despite the dominance of smartphones in the entire mobile market, Nokia still generates a substantial part of its revenues from feature phones.
Nokia faced a lacklustre 2012, as the company lost its title as the world’s largest cell phone manufacturer to Samsung Electronics amid stiff competition from Google Inc.’s (GOOG) Android and Apple Inc.’s (AAPL) iOS-based phones.
The tie-up with Microsoft Corporation (MSFT) to develop Windows-based phones has not received an overwhelming response from the users to date. At the end of the first quarter, the company sold 55.8 million feature phones as compared to 5.6 million Lumia phones.
Nokia currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
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