NOKIA ENTERS THE FRAY BY CHEAP CELL PHONE FOR EMERGING

In the fight to make up ground in the competitive smartphone market, Nokia has released yesterday a touch screen smartphone $ 99, with a focus on India and other emerging markets to help drive sales and increase their participation in the segment. Finnish mobile phone maker also announced the Asha, which operating system will run on your low-cost smartphone Nokia Asha 501. According to the company, the platform is designed to allow broader access to application developers.
Nokia has been struggling to compete in the high-end smartphone market, a segment dominated by South Korean Samsung and Apple. A aggravating to Nokia's challenges is the stiff competition from Chinese and Indian manufacturers of low-cost phones, such as Micromax Informatics. In India, Micromax sells a smartphone for $ 65, while the Samsung sells appliances under $ 110. Until last year, Nokia had a dominant market share in India, but has faced a growing threat from Samsung.
The launch of low-cost smartphone reflects the Nokia's ongoing effort to advance in fast-growing emerging markets, despite the tough competition and narrow margins. The launch of Asha platform also signals that Nokia is trying to protect their bets when it comes to Smartphone operating systems. While the Apple iOS and Google's Android, dominate the market for mobile operating systems, Nokia has obtained little success with its own operating system. Despite its scale and its relationship with carriers, the company was not able to attract developers to create good native applications. Nokia just abandoning Symbian platform and adopted Microsoft's Windows in 2011.
"With the new Asha platform, developers will be encouraged to deliver quality applications, previously found in more sophisticated smartphones, thanks to unprecedented volumes and opportunities to reach through a single distribution channel and a single platform," said Marco Argenti, Chief Executive of developer experiences, in a statement.
Stephen Elop, Chief Executive of Nokia, said yesterday, during the launch event in New Delhi, that the smartphones under $ 100 can generate a $ 40 billion market over the next two years, citing analysts ' estimates. "We believe the Asha and Asha 501 will reinvent the category of affordable smartphones," he said. Initially developed to support data services on 2 g, the device will be "relevant to 80% of the world's population, especially in emerging markets," he said.
Nokia plans to start selling the device in June. The $ 99 price excludes taxes and subsidies. The smartphone has a 3 inch screen, 3.2 megapixel camera, weighs 98 grams and has a memory capacity of 4 GB, which can be expanded up to 32 GB. Nokia claims that the device has battery life for 5:0 pm.
The Asha 501 will arrive to the Brazilian market in the third quarter. With suggested retail price of $ 99, the version for the country will be the Asha 501 Dual SIM, with sales through physical stores from Nokia and the main retailers, according to the company.
In Brazil, the appliance will be offered in the colors black and white. The list of available applications includes 40 free games from Electronic Arts.
With a focus on emerging markets such as Brazil and India, the product is more an attempt of Nokia to retrieve cell area, more specifically on smartphones, category in which still failed to match the domain that held until recently in the global market for mobile phones.
Analysts said that the new smartphone can help Nokia regain its competitive advantage against the low-cost products from Samsung and gaining space in the Indian market among consumers who are trading their most basic phones.