It’s been a tough year for Nokia (NOK) in the U.S. and Europe, but the Finnish company’s low-end phones are still ubiquitous in the developing world and that’s where Nokia is focusing with its newest releases. The Nokia 110 and 112 are fast, flashy devices with 10 hours of talk time and SIM card slots that can read and personalize up to 5 separate cards. Nokia says its web browser will “compress websites in the cloud,” reducing data consumption by up to 90%. The company wants to “connect the next billion consumers to information and the Internet,” and its hoping its phones will be the devices that bring the Internet to millions for the first time.
Social connections are the first things many people look for when they get Internet access. Facebook (currently preparing what looks to be one of the largest IPOs in history) is directly accessible from the home screens of Nokia’s new phones, as is Twitter. Nokia says that during the coming months it will make 40 Electronic Arts games available for free on the phones, including Tetris and SimCity Deluxe. Nokia says the games would cost more than the phones if purchased separately.
Both the Nokia 100 and the Nokia 112 are expected to retail for less than $50. Nokia says the 110 will start shipping during this quarter and the 112 will ship next quarter.
Nokia’s new phones will face stiff competition from Samsung, which recently eclipsed Nokia as the world’s leading vendor of mobile phones. (Samsung does not report unit phone sales, but Gartner, Strategy Analytics and IDC all believe its first quarter sales were higher than those of Nokia.) Samsung has released its entry-level Galaxy Y in India, traditionally an important market for Nokia, and has also launched a series of low-end phones in China.
(Full disclosure: the author owns shares of Nokia.)
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