Struggling with dwindling sales numbers while addressing the continued onslaught of Apple smartphones and their cheaper counterparts powered by Google's Android, Finnish mobile giant Nokia aims to arrest its sliding market shares by refocusing its energy towards the lucrative Asian market.

Nokia chief executive Stephen Elop will personally present the company's fresh business approach at the Nokia Connection 2011 set be held in Singapore on June 21, according to a statement issued by the company on Monday.

Experts regard the exploding region as the next big thing for most industries, according to Reuters, and for the stiffening competition in the mobile phone industry, Asian consumers flushed with more disposable cash offer growth opportunities for firms aiming to reclaim its lost glory, such as the case of Nokia.

At present, Asia represents a teeming market that holds the distinction as the biggest purchaser of mobile handsets to date, giving Nokia the platform it requires for a viable turnaround and possible growth targets later on, with analysts projecting that the phone market industry in the region will expand by 40 percent over the next half-decade.

Nokia said that part of its growth plan is to streamline its operations that would mean a leaner workforce, which means the company will let go of some 9000 employees while it scrambles to improve its sales numbers by forging partnerships that would add premium to its products.

Nokia spokesman Doug Dawson told Reuters that Elop's strategy plan includes the earlier sealed deal with Microsoft Corporation, where the CEO used to work, that will see the deployment of Windows Phone 7 on soon-to-be-released Nokia smartphones.

Elop's spirited efforts to revive the company's fortunes is hoped to arrest the dwindling market shares value of Nokia, which so far has shed some 40 percent since he assumed the position last year.

Yet by capturing a considerable chunk of the projected more than one billion mobile phone units that are expected to be snatched by Asian consumers up to 2015, Nokia hopes to lure more buyers by raising its production of more affordable handsets in the region.

In effect, Nokia will want to reclaim its dominance in a market where it made its mark in the middle part of the 1990s by introducing its hit basic phones that served as precursors for the features phones that the company later produced and brought considerable growth.

As the company reconfigures its strategy in colliding head-on in the smartphone industry, where it currently lags behind regional players such as Samsung, LG and HTC, plans to reinvigorate its feature phones are now underway, with Reuters reporting that a 200 million investment will be injected in Vietnam for the establishment of a low-end factory by next year.

The move, according to Nokia, will complement its existing features phones production currently spread in the North American, South American, European and Asian regions while it awaits the realization of its smartphones ventures with Microsoft, which experts said will most likely catch up with Apple and Google soon.