Nokia aims to regain glory through Microsoft tie-up

Leading mobile handset manufacturer Nokia hopes to recapture its global position through a tie-up with Microsoft that will see the launch of flagship Lumia smartphones running on Windows 8 this year. “Our new Windows 8 smartphone will support Arabic and is expected to be a big hit in the Middle East; we are clearly focused on our Lumia Windows phone devices ,” said Nokia vice-president (ME) Tom Farrell. Terming Nokia’s tie-up with Microsoft a “top strategic partnership,” Farrell said it would help the partners penetrate into a huge base of global mobile phone users who currently do not use smartphones. “Globally, there are about 5.4bn mobile phone users of whom only about 1.2bn use smartphones. And a sizeable number of the smartphone users do not access Internet. So, there is a huge market out there. This cannot be handled by one or a few handset manufacturers,” Farrell said in an interview with Gulf Times. He said Microsoft is a “tremendous technology company” with core strength in enterprise business. “With convergence in the industry, they need to get into consumer segment in a stronger way with mobile phones.  They need to win all screens – mobile, tablet, PC, Xbox,” Farrell said. “At Nokia, we have many years of experience manufacturing top quality mobile phones. But we need a much stronger ecosystem to get into the next chapter of the industry as well. With Microsoft we have a marriage of equals…it makes perfect sense,” the Nokia executive said, dismissing reports that the relationship is facing rough weather.  “Nothing can be farther from truth,” Farrell said. On the company’s current restructuring, he said, “We are now 16 months into our new strategy. We have since partnered Microsoft; the strategy is working. Consumers love Lumia once they get to experience it. We are winning industry awards with our Lumia products, the ecosystem is gathering momentum.” He said Nokia has learnt that it took time to build a strong market-leading ecosystem. “Consequently, we are prioritising and focusing all our investment on smart handsets such as ‘Lumia’, ‘Asha’ and location-based services. This, however, requires divestment of some non-core businesses, exits from some sites and causes job losses. But we are helping our affected employees and their families as best as we can,” Farrell said. He said Nokia is bullish about prospects in the GCC region, Qatar in particular. “We do very well in the region. Six out of every 10 mobile users in the region still use Nokia. In Qatar, we have been able to maintain our strong presence with the support of our local partner CGC,” Farrell said.