You are here: Home

Nokia Tells Us to Expect 6-12 AT&T Handsets in 2008

Written by PseudoFinn

Thursday, 10 January 2008 05:28

Look- up in the air! Is it a bird, is it a plane?? No! It's Nokia's apparent expectations for North America in 2008. Though they declined to officially comment on US economic woes, Nokia is stating that they have no plans to change their business plan for the continent- and that we can be expecting loads of devices tailored to fit the AT&T portfolio as well as development of CDMA devices for Verizon.

In an interview at CES, the newly appointed president of North American operations, Mark Louison said, "It's not unreasonable you'd see between six to 12 new operator-specific devices this year. It'll probably be more than this."

"You'll see some of that in the first half of 2008, with the velocity to increase that in the second half and going full steam ahead in 2009," Louison said.

Fantastic news for North America indeed! Nokia leads the world in cellphone sales, at somewhere over a million phones shipped everyday, accounting for some 80% of the revenue of mobile phones over just slightly under 40% marketshare. If they intend to jump over 40%, there's a lot of work to do in North America- and apparently Nokia is gearing up for that battle full-force. Currently Nokia is in fourth position in North America behind nearly everyone- including Motorola- which if you've been following Motorola's miserable existance in the mobile phone world lately, has to be rather embarassing to Nokia. Though, of course Motorola does far better in North America than anywhere else. Louison expects to see improvements in marketshare and US business with their two biggest North American customers, AT&T and TMobile, immediately as 2008 kicks off.

Nokia is currently in that fourth position in US marketshare with a paltry 11%, LG was third place with 15%, and Sony Ericsson ranked in with 18% at number two. Motorola led the group in the 3rd quarter of last year- somehow managing to hold onto a whopping 33% as excitement over the absurd line of Razr, Krazr, Rizer and whatever else they've been doing over there finally dies. As Nokia gears up to grab marketshare- just as Sony Ericsson has announced plans for- if Motorola doesn't come up with something big... this tussle between the two cellphone makers could very well result in pushing Motorola out of existence from the mobile phone world for good.

No matter what actually happens- 6-12 handsets from Nokia on AT&T's menu will most likely make for a very exciting year on this continent. If only Bhupinder Panesar could get a job with AT&T... I'd love to see a roadmap. ;)

Set as favorite

Email This

Comments (3) Add Comment

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by Tommie, January 10, 2008

Yes I saw this news today in a Finnish magasin and be so happy for you over there so I post in N95user forum ,thougt you not see it .. but yup u had smilies/cheesy.gif

In the Finnish magasin it stands 6-12 phones or more with carriers like AT&t ,T-Mobile, Vodaphone and Verizon Wireless . With only 3 in 2007 is a big inprovment.

report abuse

vote down

vote up

Votes: +0

...
written by PseudoFinn, January 10, 2008

Oh- sorry, CH! I actually hadn't seen it on N95users. It was only 6:15 in the morning when I came across that in my news reader, and I got up late today so I haven't even made it to the forums yet. smilies/sad.gif

6-12 devices, and that it will "probably" be more than this. That's fantastic news! I'm surprised to see it mentioned in a Finnish magazine though- this was an interview at CES in reference to North America, right? What magazine was the article in?

Oh... actually I guess I should just go read your post- and see what else is going on over there.