Nokia raises the bar in smartphone market
Nokia has unveiled its latest smartphone, with a powerful 41-megapixel camera touted as offering “more detail than the eye can see”.
The phone, which will be sold in the US market this month and in Europe and China in the coming week, launched in New York today.
Nokia said its Lumia 1020 smartphone, which has six physical lenses and optical image stabilisation, “is able to produce some of the sharpest images possible by any digital camera”.
Using a feature called dual capture, the phone simultaneously takes a high-resolution 38-megapixel image for editing opportunities, and a five-megapixel picture to share on social networks, Nokia said.
Tony Cripps, analyst at the research firm Ovum, said Nokia’s new device “sets a new benchmark for high-end smartphone engineering” and highlighted the company’s technical strengths.
“But the company must still overcome incumbent rivals, slow adoption of Windows Phone and a modest marketing budget if it is to finally help the company turn a financial corner after its recent time in the doldrums,” Cripps said.
Daniel Gleeson at IHS had a similar view.
“The Lumia 1020 will act as a halo product to boost Nokia’s brand appeal,” he said, but “will not ship sufficient volumes to turn around the company’s fortunes on its own.”
Nokia has seen its past glory fade under pressure of competition from Apple and Asian mobile phone makers.
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Microsoft and Nokia joined forces about two years ago in an alliance aimed at making inroads with handsets powered by Windows Phone software.
Windows, boosted by the Windows Phone 8 introduced last year, boosted its US market share to 5.6 per cent from 3.8 per cent, according to a recent Kantar Worldpanel ComTech survey.
IHS said Nokia’s global smartphone market share is likely to slip to around three per cent this year.
