Nokia’s Lumia 920 Set to Gain Chinese Entry via China Mobile Deal
Nokia has been getting lots of attention lately, thanks much to the Windows-powered Lumia 920, and is likely to further broaden it audience reach soon via a looming deal with China Mobile Ltd, reports said.
The upcoming Nokia-China Mobile partnership is set to be announced on Wednesday, according to an exclusive report by Bloomberg, which for the Finnish firm means more than promising sales not only for its flagship handsets but also for the rest of its Lumia and Asha phones.
Potentially, should the deal pulls through, Nokia will enjoy significant presence in the Chinese market, which China Mobile has a grip of around 93 per cent in terms of population reach, based on data published by the giant telco on its official site.
China Mobile also claims to currently service an estimated 703 million customers as of November this year, scattered on its coverage areas of mainland China, Hong Kong and Pakistan.
It prides itself as the world's biggest telco by providing mobile phone access to hundreds of millions of subscribers, easily exceeding the lucrative market that is the United States.
Gaining more inroads in a market that the tech biggies, like Apple, Google and Microsoft, would love to get into in bigger ways is considered a major coup for the still struggling Nokia, though it has been regaining some amount of composure through the Lumia 920.
Selling in China is a fit for Nokia, analysts said, opening for the company a gateway to disperse both its high-end and entry-level gadgets that are sure to attract China Mobile's diverse subscriber base.
While most of China Mobile's customers are located in rural areas, which Nokia would target with its Asha feature phones, a good chunk of its market also comprises of customers willing and able to pay for the best smartphones out there such as Apple's iPhone 5, Samsung's Galaxy S3 and soon, the Lumia 920.
It is understood that China Mobile will subsidise Nokia handsets, opening up more windows and doors for the mobile phone maker to deliver as many handsets as possible to Chinese and Pakistani customers.
According to Bloomberg, China Mobile plans to spend $US4.2 billion in smartphone subsidies just so to keep the inflow of customers coming and effectively fend off threats from its rivals.
And it appears that part of that strategy is offering the Lumia 920, which the U.S.-based publication said will be slightly tweaked to be compatible with China Mobile's TD-SCDMA network technology.
Nokia's Lumia 920 is likely to debut in China Mobile this late December, Bloomberg said, and will be released in familiar colours of black, white, yellow and red. Price packages are yet to be announced for the handset.