Nokia Lumia 1520′s 32 GB Version DISAPPEARS at AT&T, Lumia 1525 Incoming?

It seems that US wireless carrier AT&T has removed the 32GB version of the Nokia Lumia 1520 smartphone from its website, as only the 16GB variant os listed as available for purchase at the moment. There hasn’t been made any official announcement, so maybe the version is just out of stock.

Previously, when the new green color version of the large Windows Phonesmartphone was released, it was available only in the 16 GB flavor. Now, it seems that the same thing has been done for other models, as well. So, if you’ll go ahead and check AT&T’s website, you’ll see that the 32 GB version is absent.

The old link for the 32GB device variant won’t work, and you’ll get the message that the device is no longer available in your area. However, the 32GB Lumia 1520 can still be found in the carrier’s brick-and-mortar stores, but we don’t know for sure for how much more. A possible reason for AT&T ditching the 32 GB version is because the carrier is getting ready for the release of a new large Windows Phone handset which could be the Lumia 1525.

The Lumia 1525 would be an improved version of the Nokia Lumia 1520, and it could be released at the three biggest wireless carriers in the United States – T-Mobile, AT&T and Verizon. It’s said to get released with a newer, Snapdragon 801 processor inside, and it could maintain the 6-inch touchscreen display and the 20MP camera.

Software-wise, it could get the Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 operating system out-of-box, which would bring many new useful features. We’ve reached to AT&T for a comment and will let you know what they say.

Nokia made Android phone coming this month?

The phone is to be launched by Vertu, which was just recently sold by Nokia to an investment firm.

 Vertu, luxury phone maker, is planning to launch its first Android phone this month itself. Purportedly named as Vertu Ti, the phone could also be the first Nokia made Android phone as the Finnish company was the owner of Vertu just recently before selling it to an investment firm.

Reportedly, the Vertu Ti will come with an 800 x 480 resolution based display, 1.5 GHz Snapdragon MSM8260A SoC, Android 4.0.4 and a rather minuscule 1,250 mAh battery. The phone additionally has NFC, WiFi, and Bluetooth 4.0. While the phone gets very average spec sheet, Vertu phones have never been known for high-end specs and are rather known for being handcrafted and made in the tradition of fine Swiss watches.
According to another website, it is going to be priced at 3000 Euros, making it the cheapest Vertu handset till date.

Nokia looks to reclaim top spot in India

Mobile phone maker Nokia is down, but not out. The company’s India division claims it is leaving no stone unturned in trying to reclaim its top spot in the growing Indian mobile phone market.

Speaking on the sidelines of the launch of new phones in Nokia’s Lumia series, Viral Oza, director-marketing, Nokia India, told The Hindu about the company’s strategies, its USP and its most ambitious offering in its smartphone Lumia series – the Lumia 920.

Formerly the market leader in the Indian phone segment, Nokia was known for its feature phones in the mid- and low-budget ranges, until recently. Is it an even playing field now? “The whole approach Nokia has is to make sustained growth. For this, we have been executing on three pillars: future disruption, connecting the next billion and the partnership with Microsoft. Innovation gives us the competitive edge,” he said.

Defending its profits without divulging any numbers, he said, “In the first three quarters, Nokia has shipped more phones than any others.”

But is Nokia concentrating more on the expensive smartphone market at the cost of its feature phones?

“We are still the largest selling phone brand in India. Nokia is always invested in India. Our focus is on the consumer; to know and understand our consumer,” he said, adding that Nokia’s budget phones, such as those in the ‘Asha’ series, highlighted the “democratic benefits of technology”.

“Under the Asha range, we started offering phones at prices that couldn’t even be thought of,” he recalled.

Nokia launched new feature phone models last month, which showed that the company was not concentrating on the smartphone segment, he added.

Walking the tightrope when asked about whether the partnership with Windows Phone would be enough to tackle the huge Android market, Mr. Oza said, “Our aim is to create a third ecosystem.”

Nokia sells 15.9 mn smartphones in Q4, beats own forecast

Nokia Corp signaled Thursday its smartphone partnership with Microsoft was starting to reap rewards as it revealed that fourth-quarter mobile phone sales exceeded expectations and that its handset business would return to profitability.
The Finnish company’s share price surged 11 percent to close at €3.32 on Helsinki Stock Exchange.
Nokia said it sold 86 million devices in the last three months of 2012, including some 4.5 million Lumia smartphones, while revenues amounted to some €3.9 billion. A year earlier, it posted a fourth-quarter net loss of €1 billion with a 19-percent plunge in revenue.
The cellphone maker said it sold 15.9 million smartphones in the quarter, up from 6.3 million in the previous quarter.
Nokia has been struggling in the fierce top-end race against Apple Inc and Samsung and is now also losing ground to Asian makers in lower-end devices. Samsung overtook it as the world’s No. 1 cellphone maker early last year after Nokia led the field for 14 years. In 2011, Nokia announced that it would join forces with Microsoft to produce a smartphone that would run on Windows software. The latest Windows handset, the Lumia was launched last year.
CEO Stephen Elop said he was pleased with the company’s “solid” fourth-quarter performance.
“We are pleased that Q4 2012 was a solid quarter where we exceeded expectations and delivered underlying profitability,” he said. “We focused on our priorities and as a result we sold a total of 14 million Asha smartphones and Lumia smartphones while managing our costs efficiently, and Nokia Siemens Networks delivered yet another very good quarter.”
The company said operating expenses in the last quarter of 2012 had been lower than expected and that its devices and services sector saw operating margins of “between break even and positive 2 percent.” Elsewhere, its networks joint venture with Germany’s Siemens AG — Nokia Siemens Networks — had “record underlying profits and a third consecutive quarter of underlying profitability,” with operating margins expected to be 13-15 percent.
However, the company warned that seasonality and competition would have a negative impact on the handset division’s first-quarter profitability in comparison to the last three months of 2012. Nokia is due to report fourth-quarter earnings on 24 January.

Nokia bets on Asha series phones to regain market share

It's been a year since Nokia's Chief Executive Officer Stephen Elop launched the Asha series of feature phones targeting millions of Indians in the low-cost mobile phone market. Since then, Asha has become one of the best-selling handset series in the country. But has it helped the Finnish handset maker regain its popularity among the masses? Probably not.

"In terms of market share, I don't think they have come back," Gartner's principal research analyst Anshul Gupta says. "However, with successful launch of Asha series devices, Nokia has been able to stabilize its share in recent past," he adds.

Gupta says Asha is a very good device in the Rs 4,000-Rs 6,000 price point with touch user interface and some apps that are found in smartphones. "From that perspective, it is getting competitive and getting market share. But Nokia is still being challenged in the overall market," he says.

During the first six months of the year, Nokia managed to get the largest share of shipments, more than 22 per cent share of 102.43 million mobile phones coming into India, CyberMedia Research said in a report last month. Samsung and Micromax followed with 13 per cent and 5.5 per cent share, respectively.

But this has only helped Nokia arrest its fall in the market, not regain the market share it lost to Samsung, BlackBerry and local players such as Micromax and Karbonn in both the high-end and low-end of Rs 31,000-cr handset market in recent years.

Sari Harju, Nokia's head of mobile phones in India, says the Asha range has been very well received in India, and its most popular model, Asha 305, is sold out at all retail outlets. "That's a very good situation to be in. We're pleased with the development and traction we've got from customers in India," she says.

On Monday, the company introduced a new Asha 205 with a feature called 'Slam' that allows users to share any kind of data on Bluetooth without using internet data. The device along with the Nokia 206 will be available next month for under Rs 3,000.

Nokia sold 6.5 million Asha devices in the July-September quarter across the world.

NOKIA'S BIGGEST HOPE

Clearly, Asha is what gives hope to Nokia. Under Asha, Nokia offers full touch devices that offer a smartphone-like experience, complete with a capable web browser, exchange email support and gaming.

Vaibhav Sharma, founding editor of The Handheld Blog that specialises in covering Nokia devices, says the Asha lineup has been a huge pillar of strength for Nokia with increasing sales that go against the international trend of people moving away from feature phones.

Nokia's initial focus was to plug the QWERTY and dual-SIM gap in its portfolio and offer feature-rich devices at low prices points. However, the move away from Symbian and the cost of making Windows Phone devices meant that Nokia needed something in the low-mid end segment to fight off competition from low-cost touch-based phones, he says. That's how Asha happened.

Faisal Kawoosa, lead analyst at CMR Telecom Practice, says, "In a way Asha has really become the 'asha' of Nokia."

Nokia 808 Pure view to be launched in India

After the global launch in February this year, Nokia 808 Pureview is all set to capture the Indian smartphone market on June 13. The phone has revolutionized the high-end mobile imaging technology with 41-mega pixel camera.
Nokia 808 Pureview, has already been appraised a lot globally and has received Best Mobile Device at Mobile World Congress 2012 and an award for Best Imaging Innovation for 2012 from the Technical Image Press Association (TIPA).
The smartphone is crafted with a large, high-resolution 41 megapixel sensor with high-performance Carl Zeiss optics and new pixel oversampling technology and an ability to capture a high quality image, then zoom, reframe, crop and resize.
The Nokia 808 PureView also features full HD 1080p video recording and playback with 4X lossless zoom. The phone has Nokia Rich Recording facility that enables you audio recording of CD quality.
Dolby Headphone technology in the phone gives you an experience of personal surround sound with the headphone and Dolby Digital Plus for 5.1 channel surround sound playback.

Nokia Cheap With Lumia Lighting Up Demand

Nokia’s stock took a hit last Thursday and declined by more than 6%. The broader market sold off heavily on European concerns and it now looks like the the first version of the Lumia phone will be a lower end version sold through T-Mobile rather than AT&T as some had speculated.
The company also announced plans to sell off its luxury subsidiary Vertu. ^[1] With the stock down 20% or so during the last month, we believe that it’s discounting the potential impact from the Lumia line of smartphones.

DigiTimes came out with a report that component suppliers in Taiwan expect orders from Nokia to grow 20% in 2012 as the demand for Lumia smartphones increases. ^[2]
Lumia smartphones are the first devices that Nokia has introduced based on Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform.