Nokia Corp. (NOK), the largest mobile phone manufacturer of the world, selected T-Mobile, a division of Deutsch Telekom AG (DT) as the carrier-partner for its 5230 Nuron series of 3G smartphone. 5230 Nuron devices will target mass market customers with touch-screen facility.
The handset will feature a reasonable 3.2-inch, 640 x 360 touch-screen for Ovi Store apps and free Ovi Maps with turn-by-turn navigation. Moreover, the device has an onscreen keyboard.
5230 Nuron is the first 3G smartphone in Nokia’s portfolio to have the Ovi Store pre-loaded, giving users access to thousands of compelling applications and games. This new handset will be available exclusively from T-Mobile in the U.S. within next few weeks and its price has been fixed at $69.99 on a 2-year contract with T-Mobile.
T-Mobile U.S. is one of the top four wireless service providers in the country. Recently, the company announced that it has completed the 7.2 Mbit/s High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) 3G upgrade to its network and is now working on having broad national deployment of HSPA+, which offers top download speeds of up to 21 Mbit/s, by the end of 2010. Nokia is trying to leverage on this high-speed facility for its latest smartphone.
According to research firm Gartner (IT), Nokia’s global smartphone market share was 46.9% in 2009 compared to 19.9% of Research In Motion (RIMM) and 14.4% of Apple Inc. (AAPL). Nokia shipped 80.9 million smartphones in 2009. The company’s high-end 3G smartphone portfolio was consists of 7 touch screen phones. Management has decided to introduce another 10 3G mobile handsets in 2010.
In order to remain competitive, Nokia started providing professional GPS navigation services in all of its high-end 3G smartphones free of charge. The new offer allows Nokia handset owners to download from Nokia’s website for free and includes features such as travel guides and new graphics.
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