Nokia Corp. used its Nokia Mobility Conference last week in Monaco as a platform to showcase several new products, including its new smart-phone offerings: the Nokia 7710 widescreen multimedia smart phone, the Nokia 3230 megapixel smart phone and the mid-range Nokia 6020 camera phone.
“Smart phones are now at the heart of the industry,” said Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice president and general manager, Multimedia at Nokia. “Mobility is a powerful force. Not only are smart phones reaching the mainstream, they are drawing on cross-industry technologies to spur further innovation.”
The anticipated Nokia 7710 widescreen multimedia smart phone with pen input includes a wide touch screen with 65,536 colors; a full Internet browser; an integrated music player with stereo audio; video features including playback, streaming and recording; a megapixel camera with 2-times digital zoom; and an FM radio with Visual Radio client. Nokia plans to ship the GSM/GPRS device in Asia and China beginning in the fourth quarter and in Europe and Africa in the first quarter of 2005.
The Series 60 Nokia 3230 is a tri-band GSM/GPRS device with a megapixel camera with video recording and editing. Shipments are set for the first quarter of 2005 in Europe and Asia.
The 3230 and the 7710 are both based on the Symbian operating system.
Nokia added to its mid-range portfolio with the tri-band Nokia 6020 camera phone. Shipments are expected in the first quarter of 2005.
Worldwide mobile device shipments in the third quarter were up 83 percent from a year ago, with Nokia leading the charge, according to recent research from Canalys.
The firm defines the mobile-device market as feature phones, smart phones, handhelds and wireless handhelds.
Nokia grabbed nearly 40 percent of the market, according to the research. PalmOne Inc. followed in second place with 14.5-percent market share, which Canalys attributed to more than 300,000 shipments of the Treo 600 smart phone, mostly in the United States, during the quarter.
Nokia’s dominant position catapulted Symbian to the top of the operating-system market-share list. The group held 50.2-percent share for the third quarter. Microsoft Corp. and PalmSource follow with 20.2 percent and 16.9 percent, respectively.
Also at its meeting, Nokia detailed plans to expand the Series 60 smart-phone platform to cover high-end and mid-range categories and incorporate additional multimedia capabilities, widescreen resolutions and touch-screen, pen-based and traditional input methods.
Nokia also announced a Push to talk over Cellular client for certain devices based on its Series 60 Platform. The company said the client brings “walkie-talkie” functionality to the Nokia 6600, 6620, 6670 and 7610 mobile phones. Users can download the PoC client from their carriers’ Web sites or at carrier stores. The company said it will provide the PoC client to carriers free based on a software distribution licensing agreement.
