Nokia unveils new entry-level phones for growth markets

Underscoring the growth potential of emerging markets such as Africa, Nokia Corp. introduced two new entry-level mobile phones during a conference in Kenya on Thursday.

The new handsets, the Nokia 1110 and the Nokia 1600, are both designed to be easy to use, with large fonts and graphical icons and basic menu features. The 1110 has an inverted black and white display while the 1600 offers a 65,536-color display. Both are due out during the third quarter of this year.

The phones were introduced as Nokia laid out its plans for dialing into Africa´s forecast subscriber growth. The Finnish handset maker predicted that Africa would have 100 million subscribers by the end of this year, and 200 million by the end of 2009.

The company said that its goal is to move the industry toward 3 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by 2010. But in order for this to happen, the cost of mobile services to consumers has to come down to around US$5 a month, according to Nokia.

That said, Nokia´s two new phones are priced higher than some of the entry-level handsets planned by other makers. The retail price, before subsidies or taxes, of the black and white 1110 is €65 (US$79.32), and the color 1600 will cost €85.

In February, Motorola Inc. said it was planning to deliver a sub-$40 mobile phone, called the Emerging Market Handset, while the GSM Association began a project to develop a mobile phone that costs about $30.

Nokia´s new offerings have a bit more talk and standby time than the GSM Association planned for its $30 phone, however. The 1110 offers up to 5 hours of talking time and 380 hours of standby time while the 1600 offers 5.5 hours of talking and standby of up to 450 hours.

The GSM Association had set a target of 2 hours of talking time and 50 hours of standby time for its entry-level phone.

Nokia also said that it was trying to reduce costs of emerging market operators by introducing a new Prepaid Tracker service, which displays prepaid account information on users´ handsets and notifies them of their balance after each call or message. The service will cut down on the time and money it takes for operators to field prepay users´ queries on their accounts, Nokia said.

Both the 1110 and 1600 handsets have built in support for the Prepaid Tracker.

News from one of the largest IT magazine in Hungary.
Computerworld Számítástechnika - SZT Online

You can subscribe the original szt.hu newsletter here: http://www.szt.hu/newsletter_simple_english.php