SINGAPORE—Nokia Corp. introduced five new handsets that will hit the market later this year, including two Nokia-made devices for the United States market. The phones feature the company’s traditional candy-bar form factor.
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Nokia’s new CDMA models the 6275 and 2875 are interesting because they represent an ongoing but interim effort by Nokia to address its shortcomings in the U.S. market, where Sprint Nextel Corp., Verizon Wireless and Alltel Corp. operate the dominate CDMA networks. Nokia has made a strategic decision to not pursue CDMA, at least on its own, and formed a joint venture for CDMA handsets with Sanyo Corp. The joint venture will begin selling phones within the next few years.
While industry observers await the first fruits of the Nokia/Sanyo joint venture—which should produce CDMA2000 1x EV-DO handsets—the company continues to manufacture its own line of CDMA 1x phones. The 6275 and the 2875 are both CDMA 1x phones. Nokia has also used Pantech-made CDMA handsets for the U.S. market.
The new, mid-tier CDMA models both sport cameras (the 6275 offers a two megapixel camera, the 2875 has a 1.3 megapixel camera) and Bluetooth connectivity, and are expected to hit U.S. stores in the fourth quarter.
The Finnish handset maker also announced three GSM models for Europe, with no definite plans to bring them to the United States. Nokia’s model 6151 for Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa is its least-expensive W-CDMA handset, due in the third quarter. Another model, the 1110i, is aimed at exploiting the remaining pockets of first-time cellular users in Europe with support for Nokia Prepaid Tracker, which monitors usage. A mid-range camera phone, model 6080, runs on EDGE networks and is due in Europe in the fourth quarter.
