Nokia's iPhone rival won't make Christmas

Posted on 6 Oct 2008 at 16:03

Nokia's new touch-screen phone, the Nokia 5800, will not be available in time for Christmas in the UK. The phone will be in stores in seven other countries later this year, but Britain will have to wait until 2009.

With the phone expected to be cheaper than Apple's iPhone, Nokia is looking to take advantage of countries where price is a bigger factor.

The Spanish and the Russians will be able to find a Nokia iPhone rival in their stockings on Christmas morning, as will consumers Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates. But Nokia will not be ready to roll out the phone in mature markets until the beginning of next year.

"The phone is competitively priced and Nokia's competitive advantage is in emerging markets," explained Neil Mawston, analyst at Strategy Analytics. "When putting two and two together it's logical they start the roll-out from emerging markets."

The research firm expects Nokia to ship more than 10 million touch-screen phones worldwide next year.

Even investment bank JP Morgan had pinned its hopes on Nokia's 5800 battling it out with the iPhone 3G over Christmas.

"This is disappointing as we had expected the device to be shipping in the critical holiday season for most developed countries," said Ehud Gelblum, analyst at the investment bank.

LG and Samsung have already rolled out touch-screen phones in developed markets, but Nokia insisted its schedule was similar to that for many other phones. It argued that customising a phone's software for operators in other countries takes time.

Author: Dawinderpal Sahota

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