On a global scale, Nokia pretty much dominates the cell phone market. At last count, the company's worldwide market share for mobile handsets hovered just below 40 percent in Q1 2008. But here in the States things haven't gone so well for the Finnish cell phone manufacture. Indeed, North America has been a particularly tough nut to crack for Nokia in part because the company just doesn't have many CDMA-based phones that can be sold through big carriers like Verizon and Sprint.
According to Nokia's chief designer Alastair Curtis, that's about to change. In an interview with Finland's Helsingin Snaomat, Curtis said the company is planning to release a number of new models that are specifically tailored to meet the needs of U.S. carriers in the coming months. Some of these phones will be new CDMA-based models, he said, while others will be European adaptations that can take advantage of the more common calling frequencies and bands used in North America.
Avi Greengart, Current Analysis' mobile research director, says this is a prime opportunity for Nokia to start refocusing its attention on the U.S. market -- especially with other big names in the mobile space foundering (Motorola, cough, cough).
"I can say that they're tickled with the long-term changes in the U.S. market -- things like open networks and the move to LTE," Greengart said back in April. "Those play right into Nokia's hands. But they have no time to lose. They certainly can't wait for LTE. They need to invest in CDMA now. They also need to start getting their high-end GSM products to the U.S. market now."
From the looks of it, Nokia seems to be doing just that.
[Reuters via Electronista]
