As expected for some time now, Nokia recently launched three lower-cost smartphones aimed at first-time phone owners and growing business in select emerging markets.
The new phones will help Nokia try and gain a stronger foothold in Africa, India and other markets that are still relatively untapped. The Finnish phone manufacturer will release one model that will cost about 90 euros, which is expected to help make it a bit more appealing to new owners.
"Nokia's strategic focus is clearly on emerging markets now and taking higher feature devices to the masses, and these three devices do that quite nicely," said Neil Mawtson, Strategy Analytics analyst, in an interview with the AP.
The 90 euro C3 has a 2.4-inch screen, 2-megapixel camera, Wi-Fi, SD slot with up to 8GB storage support, and direct access to Nokia Ovi Mail and Ovi Chat -- offering owners the chance to sign up for e-mail directly on the phone.
Nokia's E5 will cost around 180 euros when released, and uses Mail for Exchange, IBM Lotus Notes Traveler, and other enterprise apps aimed at corporate users. Most smartphones that ship with enterprise class software normally increase the price tag, but Nokia hopes this phone is cheap enough to draw attention.
Since many mobile phone owners in these emerging markets do not have PCs and Internet access, Nokia has bundled social networking, e-mail and instant messaging features.
Nokia's C6 will cost around 220 euros, has a 3.2-inch touch screen, 5-megapixel camera, and a full QWERTY keyboard that slides out.
All three phones should be available before the end of 2010.
Expect hardware and software makers to continue launching products for emerging markets, even if many of the same models never make it to the U.S. or Europe, where customers demand more complicated features on their smartphones.
