Nokia N series Phone to be Available Worldwide Q2 2005

At a launch at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Nokia announced the N series branded range of next-generation multimedia devices. To be made available in Q2 of 2005 the series is a step towards digital convergence-to have Internet content, still and video cameras, music, e-mail and more to the hand set devices. Nokia N70, N90, and N91 are the three multimedia phones launched under the brand. 

The phones will be equipped with technologies like 3G, Carl Zeiss optics, megapixel cameras, multi-gigabyte memory, VHS resolution video and WLAN. As the Nokia Nseries devices are based on the series 60 smartphone platform, users can choose from more than 3,000 applications to add new functionalities to their devices. 

Carl Zeiss, the leading optics company, has collaborated with Nokia to incorporate its optics in Nokia camera phones. The first Nokia product to incorporate the optics and carry the Zeiss brand will be the N90 Multimedia. 

Along with the high performance multimedia devices, Nokia is having a strong focus on services. Over 25 percent of its network revenues come from services. Andrew Low, vice president, services, Asia-Pac anticipates services to grow faster than the equipment growth at Nokia. Nokia has been offering managed services for some time and responding to further customer demands is offering complete range of services to be a one-stop shop for all the network services to the operators. 

India is amongst the top five markets for Nokia with a subscriber base of 52 million. It is the largest country for service revenue in Asia-Pac. Some of the new initiatives will be to lower cost of delivery services for the operator to the customers. 

Minu Sirsalewala

Kuala Lumpur