Reference Auto

Samsung Galaxy had put Nokia out of the limelight in the smartphone market but the resilient Nokia seems to be lining up plans to grab a substantial share of this segment with the launch of its Windows-based cellphone, the Lumia 800.

This move by Nokia is in the wake of a litany of Google Android phones on the Samsung Galaxy handsets as well as the Apple iPhone series that have flooded the market.

The pricing of the Lumia 800 has been done judiciously, and ranges from around Rs 27,000 to Rs 30,000. This strategy has been adopted to take on its rivals.

The smartphone comes with an internal memory of 16 GB, which is adequate for almost all requirements, and also has a 1.4 GHz Scorpion processor combined with Microsoft Windows phone 7.5 Mango operating system.

All these are contained within a unit which has dimensions of 116 mm x 60 mm wide while being 12 m in thickness and weighing 142 g.

The Lumia 800 has a 3.7 inch AMOLED capacitive display screen which provides touch screen functionality and additional touch sensitive controls for easy navigation.

The screen operates at 480 x 800 pixels and is able to accurately display up to 16 million colour combinations, which is simply amazing.

“It’s a gamechanger for Nokia,” said Nokia India marketing director Viral Oza.

“We have redefined what we mean to Nokia customers. Nokia is desperate in its bid to make the Lumia 800 work,” said an expert tracking the cellphone market in India.

If the Lumia 800 does not become a hit, Nokia will adopt a conservative marketing plan, he added.

This statement is a clear indication that Nokia is desperately making a bid to regain lost ground (to Samsung and Apple) in the high end smartphone and tablet market.

Apple and Samsung have surged ahead with their smartphone products like iPhone and the Galaxy series and it may take quite a while for Nokia to dent the smartphone market because it never had a handset that could take on the likes of Galaxy or iPhone.

However, Nokia still dominates the cellphone market in India with around 30 per cent share but this is fast eroding, owing to the conservative marketing approach of Nokia.

Moreover, Nokia’s first Windows-based Lumia 800 has been encountering a software glitch in just a few days of its launch, which could add to the woes of the company desperately trying to make its presence felt in the high-end smartphone market.

The Lumia 800 could face a lukewarm response in Europe and if this trend trickles into India, it may not come as glad tidings for Nokia.

As per reports pouring in from a British daily, a sample sales of 5,000 handsets found that Lumia captured even less than 0.2 per cent of the market.

So, despite these drawbacks in the Lumia 800 (poor response in Europe and an initial software glitch), Nokia is trying to be in the limelight in the smartphone market, which actually could prove to be quite difficult.