Nokia Gives Symbian Handsets NFC Strength Against Android
August 24, 2011, 11:19 AM EDTBy Mark Lee and Diana ben-Aaron
(Updates with company statement in fourth paragraph.)
Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Nokia Oyj, the world’s biggest maker of mobile phones by units, announced three Symbian smartphones equipped with near-field communications in a bid to stem market share losses to Google Inc.’s Android.
The three models running “Symbian Belle” are intended to help make Symbian Nokia’s “affordable” smartphone line, Colin Giles, the company’s sales chief who also runs its China operations, said in Hong Kong. Prices start at 180 euros ($260) for the Nokia 600.
Nokia is trying to revive its 10-year-old Symbian product line to maintain sales as it shifts to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Phone 7 operating system for high-end smartphones. All three models have the near-field communications, or NFC, capability for communicating with nearby devices including other handsets. Rivals using Google Inc.’s Android system are racing Nokia to drive prices for low-end smartphones below 100 euros, further expanding the fastest-growing handset segment.
“Symbian Belle is the latest in a series of planned software updates to the Symbian planform which will continue into 2012,” the company said in a statement today.
Android was the best-selling smartphone operating system in the second quarter as sales rose more than fourfold to 43.3 percent of the market, led by Samsung Electronics Co. and HTC Corp., according to Gartner Inc. Apple had an 18.2 percent share. While Motorola Mobility’s Droid phones have found a following in the U.S., globally the company ranks outside the biggest smartphone brands.
‘Angry Birds’
Nokia, based in Espoo, Finland, began including NFC hardware on mass-market handsets last year with the C7, sold in the U.S. as the Nokia Astound. NFC permits users to exchange photos and contacts directly, activate headsets and speakers by tapping them, bring up Web pages by tapping specially tagged posters, and access features in games such as “Angry Birds” and “Fruit Ninja,” which will come preloaded in the handsets.
Google, Research In Motion Ltd., and other handset makers are also trying out NFC, some versions of which can be used for electronic payments.
Nokia announced a previous update called “Symbian Anna” in April, adding a faster browser and a portrait-mode keyboard for touchscreens. That update shipped on two new devices this summer and was rolled out to existing users of N8 family devices on Aug. 18.
The company said in February it aimed to sell 150 million more Symbian handsets.
--Editors: Robert Valpuesta, Kenneth Wong.
To contact the reporter on this story: Mark Lee in Hong Kong at wlee37@bloomberg.net; Diana ben-Aaron in Helsinki at dbenaaron1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net; Kenneth Wong in Berlin at kwong11@bloomberg.net
